No More Hoo Hoo for You Know Who

Honestly, Margaret, if I hear one more old, white guy with an opinion about abortion, his skinny white ass is going to meet my rather large shoe. It’s a woman’s decision to make. Her body. Her choice. Period.

Bart Stupak is an ass. If he is in our “big tent” then our tent is too big. But if you ask me, the real problem is probably that the “pup tent” that greets him each morning is too small.

Abortion has no business being a political game… a sound bite to make the evening news. It is a medical decision between a woman and her doctor. If you have a moral dilemma or a religious issue, then don’t have an abortion. It really is that simple. Trust me. I know.

Abortion is not a dirty word and I am sick and tired of watching holier than thou white men in Congress pretending that they have any concept of what a woman goes through when making such an important decision. For some women it is a time of great sadness – a pregnancy gone wrong, a wanted child not to be. For some women it is a time of great relief – a decision to delay parenthood. It is a deeply, personal decision made for deeply, personal reasons. And, yes, for some women it is a decision they choose not to make – again for deeply personal reasons.

Bart, if you want to reduce abortions, vote to fully fund family planning and comprehensive sex education. Otherwise, shut the hell up. We don’t care what you think about our wombs.

Women in Michigan should hang a closed sign across their hoo-hoo’s until Stupak is either voted out of Congress or grows a vagina of his own. I mean it. Really.

Have you ever considered about adding a little bit more than just your articles?

I mean, what you say is fundamental and all. However think about if you added some great
graphics or video clips to give your posts more, “pop”!
Your content is excellent but with images and video clips,
this site could certainly be one of the best in its niche.
Good blog!

It takes two to make a child. Last time I checked, a coherent father had a definite say in his future child’s life. This is about a child’s life, it has nothing to do with women’s rights. Get over yourselves you silly little liberals. People voice their opinion against abortion because the victims can’t. “I’ve noticed all those who support abortion have already been born.”

And, eventually the Prohibition against liquor was repealed, allowing most of us sane folks to live drunk because dealing with the nonsense brought about by TPs and the far right is more than we can bear sober. Separation of church and state: wish we could have a separation of crazy and the rest of us.

Excellent post. Wish there was a way the comments would only accommodate 15 responses before it started to go to page 2, then 3, etc. It’s very hard to read and article and then thoroughly read through lengthy responses/comments on just one page.

Is there some way to incrementally page like 1 to 15 response, then go to page 2 on your website????

thanks for re-introducing the moniker “hoo-hoo”! and great blog… i work with people as young as you, but often their thought processes are muddled with superstition and a multitude of logical fallacies. Helen Keeps it Real!

Your thoughts, as always, are right on target. I am so tired of the implication that if a person is pro-choice that makes him or her automatically anti-life.

Abortion needs to remain safe and legal for women who need them and who want them. I have never been in a position to need one, and I don’t know what my decision would be if I was – but I do know that I would want a choice. I would want the opportunity to make that decision for myself.

Imagine a world where abortion is legal but almost never used because we have taught our children to respect themselves, to understand what sex truly is (and isn’t) without being ashamed of it… and to make responsible decisions based on their own beliefs and convictions while respecting the views of others.

I’m a Christian, and proud of it–but I would NEVER assume that I know enough about anybody else’s situation that I can decide what they should or shouldn’t do with their own body. AND, even though I’m a Christian and proud of it, I often wonder what the hell happened to the alleged separation of church and state. If the government decides to get involved in a discussion of abortion based on the religious beliefs of its governing body, it’s abandoning the Constitution–that very same Constitution, ladies and gentlemen, that those very same anti-abortion-rights, right-wing-nutjobs seem to think Obama is trying to obliterate. Damn hypocrites.

Thank you for the confirmation Scott. If you must know, I actually had to cash in some IRAs last year to survive and received no payroll. So I paid in no federal or state from a personal perspective. The business had to pay the regular taxes and licensing fees to the governments, but profits were very down for the last fiscal term so not anything like 2007 or better yet 2006. 2006 we paid in mucho taxes as it was quite a profitable year.

And truly if the wealthy Wall Streeters were still loaning money to responsible people, I would have done quite well for the past couple of years, thank you very much. We can sell these pools, we just can’t get any financed. But it is my occupation of choice, so I will suffer the consequences, rest assured.

A very insightful historical perspective on the biology of the maturing female of the species. That is one reason I have always been greatful to be male. In a lot of ways I thought men had it much easier than women in life. In some ways it balances, but I know women have suffered under the rule of men for most of our existence.

In our modern society some women have taken to reversing the role, but overall it is still a man’s world. As a man, I have been all about women since as far back as I can remember. I still believe them to be the best thing God created. So good that even angels were said to fall under their “spell”. What would life be without the sexes? Much more boring, for sure. It would be a real hard sell to convince me otherwise. But then, I am still learning and refining theories. Stagnant water turns foul.

Speaking of stagnant water, I have been casting a few baited hooks over at Neil’s place. Since he four-wheeled through our stream a few weeks back and left his calling card, I thought it only fitting to follow his tracks and throw a few rocks into his pond to see what life might surface. Therein stirs a variety of scaley finsters. Most swim to the right as expected. It might be fun for some from here to comment on one of his recent posts regarding who pays the most taxes. Got to keep ’em honest, or at least try.

For some of us who get our ‘panties’ in a wad, I’m about to bring up an ‘unmentionable’ subject that I feel has some relevance in today’s world. I remember a time when women’s underwear of any kind was considered ‘unmentionable’. Talking about sanitary protection during the menses? Forget it. But the necessity has always been there. Primitive women used dried leaves. That was a practice that extended well into the Middle Ages. Can you just imagine the possible introduction of infection and vermin?

In my own mother’s day, they used cloths, doubled and tied or pinned over a ‘sanitary belt’. The invention of the safety pin was a huge innovation!!! Each girl had a stash of cloths that she had to wash and dry on the clothesline every month from puberty on until menopause, IF she lived that long. There were no such things as washers and dryers.

Back in those days only men were involved in the business world. Some men must have been observant enough and cared enough about women to figure out there must be a better way to make a woman’s life easier and more pleasant in that respect. They came up with the convenient pads and tampons we know today. In the process, the companies that mass-produce them make a ton of money. It’s a win-win proposition.

I well remember the first time I tried to use the relatively new concept – a tampon. No longer would a girl have to sit on the sidelines for five days out of each month when she was ‘unclean’. (The old Biblical term when she was also unavailable sexually.) She could even go SWIMMING without a soggy, bulky pad. But a young girl was warned NEVER to use a tampon until after she was married because it could break her hymen; the only PROOF she could have of her virginity on her wedding night.

In the early 50’s was in college and thought I was ever so up-to-date and sophisticated! Two of the senior girls stood outside the door of a stall in the dorm common bathroom giving me instructions from their vast storehouse of knowledge and experience on how to insert a tampon. I was not successful. The damn thing kept falling out.

Anyway, these days, whatever would we do without pads, tampons, Kleenex, paper towels and Ziploc bags! To say nothing of washers, dryers, dishwashers and a host of other ‘modern conveniences’. Good Ole’ Days? Not for this Old Broad!!! I think we can thank men for coming up with the ideas for most of those, perhaps with a little complaining and nagging on the part of their women.

Further, men who are cognizant of the needs of women are by far better equipped to work toward equality for the benefit of society at large. It is no reflection on their manhood at all. Far from it! To the contrary. In the words of big-muscles-between-his-ears-Governor Schwarzenegger of California who accused some of being ‘girly men’, his idea of masculinity is that of men who are far more interested in competing with and impressing other MEN by their tough guy, muscle flexing macho and swaggering bravado stance. It is my contention that the Schwarzeneggers of the world are the ones who are deficient in true masculinity.

Any man who is secure in his own identity doesn’t need to prove it at all either by dominating or putting down women. Fortunately, with the obvious exception of trolls, we have quite a few strong, intelligent and secure men here at M&H.

I enjoy your blog so much. Reminds me of my Mom who passed away at 82. A bright liberal woman who was active in politics until the end. She was an inspiration to me and others.

And as a woman who had to have an abortion (Dalkon shield for those who remember) while raising two sons under five meant that decision was discussed with my doctor and my husband. No politician was involved. It wasn’t easy or convenient.. but I agree that until men can give birth, keep their mouths shut. If God doesn’t like it, it will be judged at the pearly gates!!

That’s a fine example of how to justify bad acts and be a complete hypocrit, skivoigts.

Is that how you want the Republicans to call out the bullshit in their own party? Is that what you get your panties in a wad about over the “so-called Christians” not condemning each other every bad act committed by other Christians or other people posing as Christians?

Warned last week, leading anarchist groups have announced that they plan to “crash” the nationwide Tea Party protests on April 15, a promise that should not be taken lightly given the proven history of such organizations being infiltrated and steered by authorities to provocateur pointless mayhem and violence that serves as a justification for oppressing peaceful protest groups.

Now a new website called crashtheteaparty.org has appeared to act as a forum through which such activity can be planned. The website openly states its mission is to have people infiltrate and pose as Tea Party members and then carry out shameful acts in order to “dismantle and demolish” the Tea Party. The website is registered to a man named Josh Levin.

“Whenever possible, we will act on behalf of the Tea Party in ways which exaggerate their least appealing qualities (misspelled protest signs, wild claims in TV interviews, etc.) to further distance them from mainstream America and damage the public’s opinion of them. We will also use the inside information that we have gained in order to disrupt and derail their plans,” states the website.

Are ya mid west..? which is what everyone calls themselves from Ohio to Nebraska?..
Never have heard Mamm used up north.
And manners should be practiced more..but I see and hear it more down south. Just an observation.
Was scolded once by a former female Airforce sergeant / secretary for using Mamm, as she informed me she was not my mother..I just informed her I practiced it all my life and as that is the way I had been brought up as well.

Jean, I had to laugh at your “roll call” comment. My dad used to do that – after calling out my siblings names once, he then called the dogs, before remembering my name! It was so funny.. we teased him about it a lot and when he was 68, my brother and I showed up wearing dog collars with our names on it and we gave him one. I thought my dad was going to choke to death laughing so hard.

and Craig, aka “gregorio” I’m neither Southern nor Texan. But I was raised to say ma’am and sir. We never called adults by their first names, it was always Mr. Mrs, or if they were family friends, Uncle, Aunt etc. And that’s one lesson my stepson has learned – and all our adult friends comment on his manners. So IMO it’s not a “Southern” or a “Texas” thing – it’s simply a manners thing.

I don’t think it matters much, in the scheme of things, when or where someone of prominence is referred to by their first name or last name, or for that matter a slightly altered name, Bill or Bob, neither was meant to be derogatory. It is just isn’t a big deal to me to hear colleagues or friends refer to woman by her first name. I’ll worry about such trivial matters when workplaces (coalmines) are safe place to work, everyone has adequate healthcare, states find the money to educate the next generation….

Oops! I mispoke in my comment of Apr. 12, 2010 at 9:02 PM. Correction! According to Wikipedia, Robert Michael Gates is the current Secretary of Defense. William Henry Gates III is the co-founder of Microsoft. This changes the whole thrust of my point. There have often been plenty of “Bobs” and “Bills” floating around in public life but only one Hillary Rodham Clinton that I know of. Further, a blog is hardly a formal setting. (I hope this clarifies. Even no one’s puppet failed to pick up on this one.)

I apologize profusely for my error. In my own defense, when speaking to my husband and/or three sons, I often ‘call the roll’ before I get to the right name, nickname or term of endearment. The only time any of them get the full name treatment is when they are in BIG trouble!

Separate, but related – I am really enjoying the latest from the Repubs on the fight to come.

Did you know they’ve been taking it easy on us so far? Health Care? not so much. But this time – This time – they’re going to the wall if we don’t give them their way. The Fight of the Century has been promised.

No, honeys – we just had the Fight of the Century. You lost.

I know the R’s are the party of rewriting history, but wouldn’t it be a good idea to at least wait a few weeks? A four year old with ADD can remember back this far.

Nominating Secretary of State Hilary Clinton for the Supreme Court would be a master stroke but would cause Republican apoplexy and would never survive the hearings. If you think the level of hate aimed at President Obama is extreme, Hilary Clinton’s name will ratchet the level up ten fold. I suggested this possibility months ago to a few of my Republican acquaintances and their eyes almost popped out of their heads. (Actually the resulting sputtering and fulminating was fun to watch.)

Also, I learned a long time ago to use official titles in a public or formal setting unless instructed by the person to address them in a different way. It is a simple matter of respect. In informal settings, whatever the person is comfortable with, they will usually let you know. But I agree that the disparity between how males and females in power address one another is there and has been there for a long time and it might take a few generations to put everyone on the same level playing field.

Other than defining her job position, Secretary of State, I afraid I missed you referring to the former First Lady, by her full title. Heck Jean, we all call Hilary, Hilary. We feel comfortable with her and mean no disrespect when we call her Hilary, so why scold Gates for his informality?

Auntie Jean,
I appreciate your comment. My mother and I have both noticed this, too. It happens frequently with women in high political positions. Men often address the women by their first name, but the women address the men by their position or title. It has always bothered me. I find it condescending, as well. This shouldn’t be happening still.

Yesterday, Sunday, April 11, we were watching a political commentary show on TV. Hillary Clinton and Bill Gates, the Secretaries of State and Defense respectively were interviewed in a discussion about nuclear weaponry. I think we can all agree that is a very serious topic. It was an informative forum.

I noticed something interesting. In each other’s presence, Hillary referred to “Secretary Gates”, in respect to the office and responsibilities he holds; while he referred to “Hillary”. In a less formal setting when they are working together, they may very well address each other by their given names (or perhaps Hillary already has enough ‘Bills’ in her life.)

Perhaps I am being petty, but I thought it was somewhat condescending on Gates part but no doubt totally unconscious with no disrespect intended. At least, he didn’t say anything like, “Hey, darlin’” or any of the other innumerable feminine put-downs.

Today there is talk of nominating Hillary to fill the new Supreme Court vacancy. There is no doubt in my mind that she is eminently qualified. However, that puts the GOP squarely behind the eight ball. If Obama should decide to nominate her and the GOP agrees to confirm her that would take her out of the presidential running in possibly 2012 and/or 2016 but put a liberal judge on the court for life. She is still fairly young.

Lived in the Wolverine State (there never were any wolverines there, but, hey!) for many years and never knew that the northernmost Congressional District was one of the largest in the country despite the claims from Texas. The Congress critter for that District, Bart Stupak, has decided to retire. Yes, he’s been on the Hill for 18 years, but this time the mad hatters and their spin-offs really got to him for his vote switch on the health care reform bill. I think he based his stance on abortion funding on the very evenly balanced split between parties within his constituency and his belief that he was so solid locally and even nationally. He either did not recognize or believe that mad hatters from all over the country would target him – and his family – as they have. What a misread! Personally I did not see any value or virtue in Stupak’s politics and the way he played the game, but I wouldn’t wish such hate on anyone. The Pandora’s Box that the GOP unleashed with their own language has morphed into something that could eat them all alive. It knows no boundaries. Before this hate gets any worse (yes I know that hate at any ranking is always worse) maybe the GOP can read the entire story of Pandora and discover that there was a second box, the contents of which were supposedly entirely different from the one she opened. Until the mad hatters are tranked, keep your seat belts buckled! Its going to be a very, very bumpy ride.

Thank you for your comments and links. As we can see, a teeny-weeny omission in a URL can make a very big difference. It was only a matter of a little over an hour between your two comments, both coming from different points of view. If you want to count mine, that makes three perspectives of opinion. When we talk about a matter of weeks, months, years and millennia with people talking and writing about the same subject – well, the waters can get pretty muddied! It is all about what we CHOOSE to believe.

That’s one of the reasons when I hear people expounding away and saying, “The FACTS OF THE MATTER ARE…….” or ” THE TRUTH IS……..”, I immediately tune out. Whose FACTS and whose TRUTH? I have certainly not cornered the market on either. I still have plenty to learn.

make sure you get the whole URL because buried in Wikipedia article is the following quote.

“Recent research suggests the participants were not children, at least not the very young. The confusion started because later chroniclers, who were not witness to the events of 1212 and who were writing 30 years or more later, began to translate the original accounts and misunderstood the Latin word pueri, meaning “boys”, to mean literally “children”. The original accounts did use the term pueri but it had a slang meaning, similar to how the term “country boys” is used as a derogatory term in the rural United States.”

Is it not possible, using the same analysis, that anything offered in the New Testament is questionable for the same reason?

I think the largest problem with C street and other sects like them is the fact that they are ‘christian’ or at least claim to be. It seems to me that one group/sect is loath to denounce another as a farce simply because of the ‘claim’ to be christian.

Christian means ‘follower of Christ’. Plain and simple, no ifs, ands or buts about it. Either one IS a follower of Christ and his teachings or one is not. If one cannot/will not follow all the teachings of this christ, then one simply should not be allowed to claim being christian. (IMHO)

Other than the use of the name and book, the vast majority of these cults and sects have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with christianity. It is all about the prestige of the name of the organization, control and self serving satisfaction.

I think the C Street Family doesn’t “smack” of a cult, it IS a cult. These people fascinate and amaze me. It’s one thing to be selfish, egomaniacal and completely devoid of any compassion for another’s feelings or needs, but to proudly choose that mindset and use the Lord as justification for it is a whole other level of smarmy. and the people who excuse them just because they sit in a pew every week and can quote scripture word for word, and are anti-choice, you have to wonder where their heads are as well. That excuses abandoning your own children and their mother on Father’s Day weekend to go bump uglies in Argentina with your hot Latin Lover. Yeah, now those are some family values I can get behind!! NOT.

Taylor Marsh wrote for the Huffington Report: “…while people hunger for something radically different which is currently being filled by the Tea Party, a star named Sarah and her fans…I know, you’re shocked. But love her or hate her, whether she runs in 2012 or not, when you look at the left, the reality is there is no anti-Palin progressive who matches what Palin’s got.

Mrs. Palin’s politics aren’t for me, and though I pine to see hot headliners from the left, instead we get the likes of Clair McCaskill, Kathleen Sebelious and other Obama blue dog duds, with no women of any wattage in sight.”

In the interim, I can always come up with another of my history lessons pertinent to todays history. I mentioned ‘Chastity Belts’ on a previous comment. Here’s the scoop on them.

Up until the Church in Europe got into the act, most societies since time immemorial considered women mere chattel. A man’s horse or cow had more value. The elevation of Jesus’ mother Mary to ‘Blessed Virgin’ status was an ENORMOUS leap toward the equality of women with men. We aren’t anywhere near there yet though.

The emphasis of course was on VIRGINITY. A woman was supposed to be childlike, obedient, modest, demure, helpless and above all, a VIRGIN. Even a married woman could still be considered a ‘virgin’ if she did not enjoy the marriage bed. This attitude was taught from infancy to both men and women. It was similar to the Persian, Greek and Muslim practices with wives and concubines. So men could have more fun with concubines, mistresses or prostitutes.

It was the old concept of ‘The Madonna and the Whore’. Either or. A woman is still identified by the honorific, Miss, Mrs. or now, Ms., denoting the state of her virginity. (I am reminded of the tired old definition of an ‘Old Maid’ as “a woman who has never been married or anything”.)

During the Middle Ages the knights rode off on their trusty steeds to the Crusades in Religious Wars to wrest the Holy Land from the political control of the Muslims. That was a ruse of course. Europe wanted to get its hands once and for all on the overland lucrative trade routes to the Far East – the famous ‘Silk Route’.

(A ruse like Iraq, Iran, etc? What’s the difference, since ALL the Middle Eastern countries have OIL, don’t they? Although Golda Meier, a woman and former Prime Minister of Israel once dryly quipped, “Moses couldn’t have been so smart if he led his people around the desert for forty years to the only Middle Eastern country without oil.”)

Of course, the knights were never successful, even with EIGHT Crusades between 1095 and 1291, over a hundred years! That included the Children’s Crusades for heaven’s sake. Some 30,000 youngsters of an average age of twelve ON FOOT were recruited and left Germany in 1212, followed by 20,000 from France. Many of them died along the way, some were sold into slavery but a few did make it as far as Genoa, Italy. They appealed to Pope Innocent III for help, who told them to go home. We mortals commit such folly over such absurdities!

So ‘Christian’ Europe had to take to the seas with Imperialism and colonize around the world to finally get to those Far Eastern trade markets again.

There is an old tale that has been going around forever, which may or may not be true. Knowing they might be gone for years in war, some knights got a little carried away with the emphasis placed on protecting the virtue of their ladies. They came up with ‘Chastity Belts’, complete with a lock and key. The knight took the key with him! The belts were cumbersome devices with spikes to prevent intrusion or temptation. Some pretty ridiculous mental pictures leap to the imagination! I have seen various types in museums in Europe. By the way, what happened to the lady if her knight never returned with the key?

So now that we have come such a long way since the Middle Ages, our ‘chivalrous knights’ march off to pulpits, City Councils, State Capitols and Washington to be the ultimate authorities, the ‘deciders’ on all issues; especially regarding these poor, modest, demure, helpless females who don’t have their masters’ profound knowledge and wisdom to know what’s best for their own minds, bodies and health. Sheesh.

What’s that again about history not repeating itself? All you have to do is change the names, dates and places, and you have the same old, ancient conservative refrain.

I hope MSNBC pundits have discovered this incredible blog. Makes me think of Keith Olberman with more wit and charm. Simply the best writing I’ve come across. Need I mention I’m in completely in agreement with Helen and find Margaret delightful to know. Thanks so much for writing. Love the Sarah Palin “review.” I hope when our new blog, ElderChicks grows up, we’ll be half as good to read.

uh, YO-ho’er gergo, stole another and reverse for that trumped up bada-bing, that one was “round back in the Bushlerismatical days and referred to the B & C team…course these day C’s daughter deserves it far more !! But whatever , your bad-bing had NO bing, just bada repetitious tripe-snipe attempt !! (anytime you would like like to give a try at something original, give it a rim shot, til thenjust another bad-binging day to ya !!)

Whose family smacks of a cult?? the porch dwellers?
Enough of the frivolity…………..
A man died and went to heaven. As he stood in front of St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, he saw a huge wall of clocks behind him.

He asked, “What are those clocks?”

St. Peter answered, “Those are Lie Clocks. Everyone on Earth has a Lie Clock. Every time you tell a lie, the hands on your clock will move.”

“Oh,” said the man, “whose clock is that?”

“That’s Mother Teresa’s. The hands have never moved, indicating that she never told a lie.”

“Incredible,” said the man, “and whose clock is that?”

St. Peter responded, “That’s Abraham Lincoln’s clock. The hands have moved twice, telling us that Abe told only two lies in his life..”

“Where’s President Obama’s clock?” asked the man.

“Obama’s clock is in Jesus’ office. He’s using it as a ceiling fan..”
Rim shot please! Bada bump!

I hope they don’t Peas…
But I think ole Bart is just gonna fade back into his covert life with his “family ” connections. They are pretty well funded and very powerful. I am sure he already has a “job” lined up with some well funded “think tank”.

Hey LibertyLover, I am positive “The Family” gave him many political problems and not just from the left. He sewed himself into a corner didn’t he? There is no doubt in my mind all of this had been worked out before he cast his last vote.
And no, you won’t hear any more about “The Family”. That will not serve either political party at this time and of course we all know if it doesn’t serve a purpose miraculously it just goes away.. Funny how that works isn’t it? LOL ;-)

According to the Associated Press, about 47 % of Americans will pay no federal income taxes for 2009. By the logic of some posting here, if you pay no taxes, you have no right to discuss American policies.

“Mary got pregnant from a kid named Tom who said he was in love

He said ‘Don’t worry about a thing baby doll
I’m the man you’ve been dreaming of’
But three months later, he say he won’t date or return her calls
And she swear ‘GD, if I find that man I’m cutting off his b…s.’
And then she heads for the clinic and
She gets some static walking through the door
They call her a killer, and they call her a sinner
And they call her a whore
God forbid you ever had to walk a mile in her shoes
‘Cause then you really might know what its like to have to choose.”

You are both correct Jean, Montgomery was the capitol from February 4th, 1861 to May 23rd, 1861 when it moved to Richmond, when Richmond was taken over by the Union, it was moved again to Danville, VA.
The Southern White House in Richmond is surprisingly small, but well worth visiting.

Auntie Jean, you’re right about the capital of the Confederate States of America being located in Montgomery AL. BUT, when Virginia seceded from the Union, the Capital of the CSA was moved to Richmond VA. Later on, as the Union forces advanced with deadly force, the CSA government was forced to relocate the Capital to Danville VA. So considering the fact the CSA had three Capitals it must have been hell on the officers wanting orders from the government – where do you send the request now? So you’re right, the VA govt is correct in its assertion as the capital of the CSA, and I guess the folks in “real Virginia” can breath a sigh of relief that their claim to White Supremacy remains valid. Of course, though, the ultimate accolade of white supremacy remains with Tennessee, the birthplace of the KKK

Came by the other day but didn’t have time to post, love the Washington post Peep show/contest,look for it every year.

Remember the big to-do during the Presidential campaign about Acorn and how a few of our illustrious right wing/Fox trolls frothed slandering Obama because of Acorn?

Looks like Fox news got caught red handed once again. Too bad so many folks have been hurt by this travesty. It would give me great pleasure to see these folks take Fox & Friends to court and sue them dry.

Rachel Maddow takes on Fox News, Brietbart and James O’Keefe The DA’s office in California have cleared ACORN workers of any criminal wrongdoing- and have begun to release the UNEDITED Acorn-pimp videos. Rachel Maddow decides to show how different those videos are from what was shown on Fox News.

Not to worry. All of us porch dwellers know there are far too many fine, intellegent people in MN or from there to buy into the BS being spewed out by Palin, Bachman et all. Let ’em make all the noise they want for the TV cameras while they stuff both feet into their mouths.

Did you see the incredibly innane ‘Proclamation’ from the illustrous governor of Virginia? Something about a National Confederacy Month mostly to promote tourism in VA? He much too belatedly apologized and amended it to say a little something about slavery that he forgot to mention in the ‘Proclamation’. Next somebody will want to honor Hitler because he made the trains run on time. Talk about revisionist history!

I actually saw a ‘Good Ole Boy’ on CNN spouting off about how VA was the capitol of the Confederacy! Uh, just for the record, Montgomery, ALA was the capitol and Jefferson Davis was their president. Where in the hell did any of these guys go to school – or did they?

This could be hilariously funny if it weren’t for the blind and blatant stupidity of it all.

To my Minnesota porch dwellers, as someone who grew up in MN and still calls it home in spite of living in CA, I am mortified by Ding and Ling as in the dingaling sisters. Hurrah to the State Attorney general for not succumbing to the pressure and having a pair.

I am baffled and deeply embarrassed every time I hear Michelle Bachman speak. How in the heck did she get elected?

This from the state that is incredibly forward thinking.

I hope your day wasn’t too bad, and I hope “she who won’t be mentioned” drops a big load of money at Neiman Marcus on new clothes!

According to the tv this morning, Sean Hannity & Timmy Pawlenty will be there, too.

Timmy is really hitching his star to these people. He asked our attorney general to join the lawsuit against health care. She inspected the bill, noted it was constitutional and declined. In fact, she’s filing as a ‘friend of the court’ in favor of it.

She told him he could file as an individual (not as the State of MN) against it. He’s doing just that.

Typically, he got where he is with every public assistance available to him. Now he wants to pull the ladder up behind him. Leaving most of the Tea Party people behind.

Oh, yes, we are fascinated by Annie and Albert Albatross. Indeed, they are magnificent soaring machines in the air. They do seem to ride the air streams somehow, because you do not see them flap their wings, even when they come in for a ‘landing’ on the grass. They are awfully awkward on land however, waddling along.

We have seen a few ‘dive bomb’ into the sea with incredible speed and come right back up with fish in their bills. I think they can stay aloft for quite a while.

Aloha! :-)

Auntie Jean

P. S. Helen, if you are reading, you can see how desperate we are getting for a new post.

What great fun to be able to get up that close to an albatross. Back in 1947 I was on the carrier USS Philippine Sea on the way from Panama to the Antarctic carrying 6 R4D’s (civilian equivalent C-47) for Admiral R E Byrd’s post war expedition. Somewhere between Panama and the Ross sea we were shadowed by a persistent albatross that followed along in the air turbulence behind the ship and for the week or so it followed us, I never saw its wings move and I never saw it alight in the water. It was the most magnificent soaring machine I have ever seen.

Either we were brought up in the same town or our experiences in the 1930’s were very similar. We too had a lady driving around town in a Detroit Electric and she always had a red rose in the flower vase. Her husband was a local doctor who also used the car to make house calls. The problem with the electric cars was that they made virtually no noise and you had to be aware of the possibility of their presence every time you started to cross the street.
Also, the first VW Beetle I bought in 1957 had a flower vase. It hung from the dashboard just ahead of the gearshift.

jsri – I also just remembered the lady in our town who drove an electric car. Inside on the door post behind the drivers sear was a budvase with a rose!
Don’t remember seeing it too many times.
I haven’t thought about that for many years!

Annie, our Albatross is back! She is sitting out on the grass of the golf course across the way, waiting for Albert to join her. They mate for life. The Albatrosses have been coming back to the same spot every spring forever to mate and hatch one very large egg the size of a basketball. No nest. Annie just lays it there on the grass. They are very big sea birds with a wingspan of 16 feet. They are all white except for black around their heads. They have a lengthy stylized mating dance where they face each other, weaving back and forth and bobbing their heads up and down.

They take turns sitting on the egg to incubate while the other is off at sea foraging for food. When the chick hatches, it is a big grey fuzzy ball. It just sits there waiting for mama or papa to bring fish.

In our area, there are a number of signs this time of year on the roads, “Caution, Albatross Crossing” with an icon of the bird. They are protected.

Annie was smart enough this year to move far away from the golf cart path. People walk their dogs on the path and the pooches have chased Annie away in years before.

I not only remember rumble seats but I can also recall memories of a wealthy lady in our town in the mid 1930’s who drove a Pierce Arrow with a rumble seat. Rain, sleet or snow, the butler rode in the back while the lady drove. A woman driver was a rarity at the time too but the self starter soon took care of that.

It is time to rachet down our military and get our troops out of the middle east. I don’t know how many of you might have seen the report on MSNBC yesterday, but it isn’t pretty. Our government and the media usually quash this type of information. Thankfully we have some insiders trying to get an accurate picture out to the rest of us. WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad — including two Reuters news staff.

Far too much vitriol and rage has been spent on pro-life vs. pro-choice when the real issue is not to get preggers in the first place. All of that energy on both sides should be spent on promoting prevention. Helen is right – abortion is a personal decision. The politicians (mostly male) should stay out of it.

( a sidebar LO, the previous was numbered >>> 666<<<<, mmm, how appropriate for truly think the subjects far more aligned with the devil for sure. no matter how they try to pain themselves as THE "TA's, True Patriots and comapssionate christians and etc in so very many areas and in regards to important issues with the preposterous stance being THEY believe /want smaller government and the RIGHT TO BE but want such only extended to those that lockstep in mindssstep and demanor with "their" preferences above and beyond all others rights, considerations and whatever "knots' as so sure that only THEY have the ability to determine what is or should be !!! !!!

Its been awhile, have had some major medical issues here with family member but have dashed in and out , as always so many gret inputs. Hope BEST of Spring “springing” for all (even the onery sorts, lol-they surely could use some “good” !!!)
So spot on regarding the subject from M&H fan and too, what common sense from Harly-would surely “HELP” to balance some of the equations involved (If we cut off the penis of every man who has sex outside of marriage, we could reduce the number of abortions.By: Harly on March 30, 2010 )

Yo Granma K…thought of this when noted your reference to the upcoming TV -Palin hyped tripe offering used to stuff her coffers even fuller(can BUT think skimmed, scammed , shim-sham rolls on and on and still can’t fanthom why or how there COULD be that many ignorant souls to make up some audience that would be actually considered a value/etc…but hey, , a what evering and thensome….)
YouTube – You’re a Pain ! – Palin Parody of “You’re So Vain !”

and further enlightenmenting of the vociferous voices center staged while most others are ignorred allowing it to seem not that WE are just the SILENT MAJORITY but NON EXISTENT…A reminder how it will be eer so important to VOTE in the mid-term as well as 2012…Obama and the Dems may NOT be perfect and have faults as well but we nor our country can NOT afford to be hijacked by these sortee’s !! Need to temember, when GWB FIRST got positioned in the WH, that election saw LESS THAN 50% of ALL ELIGIBLE VOTERS BOTHER TO VOTE and he actually LOST the POPULAR VOTE (ending with we had LESS than 25% of the voters VOTE him his “victory” title/entitlement to lead us down the path which has cost us ALL far more than WE should have ever had to bear !!!)

Grandma Katie, I remember rumble seats, you must be a lot younger than you claim. Of course, I was just a child, but my father bought a 1938 Packard around 1947 I think. I have a vague memory of being allowed to ride in the rumble seat and loving it. It’s a little like a convertible, though, no good if it raining.

Greytdog, Thank you for the Passover link. Beautiful sentiments. We just did our Passover Seder last night, had scheduled it originally for last Monday night, the actual first night. That was the morning I went to the ER with my Shingles attack though I didn’t know what it was at the time. We had heavy rain and some flooding so it was decided that the older folks who had to drive shouldn’t.

So we decided to do the Seder on Easter Sunday. Since we’re a mixed bag anyway, (I was brought up Christian but haven’t been affiliated for many years, and my husband is Jewish, we just did every holiday that came by while our son was growing up). I’m always amazed at how similar the various holidays are. And the part about all of the really good ones is the family part.

At the last minute, my doctor said I probably shouldn’t be in the same room (with Shingles) with my granddaughter who certainly hasn’t had chicken pox yet. I was practically in tears. Seeing her is my reward for putting up with almost anything.

Long story, shortened, I attended the Seder via computer on SKYPE. I find it less satisfying than a personal visit but it worked out remarkable well. Dear son had to make the chicken soup (some said it was better than mine) Dear husband made the kugels, Dear brother in law researched precedents of having Passover on Easter and the way the calendar has changed for these religions over the centuries and we had our Seder.

Now we can add this family holiday to our family Christmas which was totally memorable because we all (9 adults, one baby) came down with a stomach virus while staying at Williamsburg, Va. Half of us missed the pageantry but at the end, we all agreed it was our most memorable Christmas.

This was a good article. We are so conditioned (brainwashed) in this country. As a people we always want to believe the best of others. There are others here to take advantage of that. Always suspect a “false flag” first.

Auntie Jean – I think I am a coupleo of months older than you. LOL
I am having a good time digging out old memories of t he 30’s and 40’s.
Does any one remember “rumble” seats in cars?
My mother commuted 35 miles to a shell loading plant during WW11 and for awhile had to ride in the rumble seat of her ride. It was carpooling at its earliest. I vaguely remember her say ing how cold it was riding there!

Hello Everyone. This is an exciting holiday for Christians, as you could imagine, due to the resurrection and all. :grin:

I didn’t know if anyone is familiar with Nick Vujicic, who could easily have been aborted given he has no arms or legs and yet now at 26 he travels the globe with his ministry. He has a very big heart.

I’m hoping everyone had a nice Saturday. We had a perfectly delightful afternoon tramping around, beach combing for small pieces of driftwood. I want to make a wee dinosaur skeleton out of driftwood. I found possibly two ‘heads’, one ‘spine and tail’ but no ‘legs’ yet. This will undoubtedly turn out to be a 7 – 8 – 9 or more tripper to various beaches but we don’t mind.

The whole idea is to make REALLY, REALLY, REALLY CHEAP Christmas gifts for our sons and their families. The wee dinosaurs will only be 18” – 24” long.

So far, I have a bit of a problem finding curved pieces for the rib cage. I’m thinking, maybe I could soak some straight pieces until they are waterlogged enough to bend into the shapes I want. Anybody out there in the gang have any other ideas?

Wow, I had no idea what the cost was, my husband is retired military and of course we are both on Medicare, so we have no co-pay. I am very privileged, I wish everyone had the insurance coverage I have.
Thank you avotresante, I hope everyone enjoys it.

About half of my pre-adult years were spent in Newport in the 1930’s and during the early part of WWII. It was a much different place then than what is seen today. There was no industry and its only employer was the US Navy. It was the Fleet HQ of the First Naval District and any swabbie who served there during those years knew two things about Newport, one was Newport Toni (the city’s best known street walker and her white boots) and the other was the Blue Moon Cafe where you didn’t leave until you were falling-down drunk.

Only after the Navy pulled out did the city recover its reputation and now it a showplace for its unique architecture and its funky tourist attractions. My wife and I go down there often and a couple days ago we were in a restaurant that had a big blue neon sign on the back wall with the name Blue Moon on it. When I asked the proprietor about the sign he said they kept it as a sort of historic reminder but that except for a few people like me who show up occasionally, most patrons now only see it as an interesting sign. Time marches on I guess but a lot of funny history gets left behind.

No One’s Puppet, Thanks for that vaccine info. I’ve been looking more in to it and have come up with: DH know someone from the gym, a couple, he has Shingles now and had decided a year or so ago, NOT to get the vaccine because it would have cost $500 for both he and his wife to get it. DH also told me my sister in law decided not to get it because she learned that it is not so effective for people over 70 and she chose to save the money. Neither health insurance Co. would pay for the vaccination. I’m doing further research. Learned that it’s not good for people with immune system problems.

At $250 per person, I see why the insurance co.s don’t want to cover it. Since the anti-viral cost them $300 PP and many people don’t develop Shingles and if they do, don’t take the anti-viral, they can think they’re saving money.

Judith, I practically snorted coffee through my nose laughing at your “sanitary napkin the size of a hoagie” comment. That is EXACTLY what it felt like. These musings of things past have been fabulous, sanitary belts and all. Panty hose were a great improvement over garter belts except for someone like me who, at 5′ 10″ by the time I as 14, could never find hose long enough so the crotch would go past somewhere around my knees. (I would gladly give those panty hose to Boehner to put over his head, Sofia)

Here’s another one: my mother was a stewardess (as they were called then) for American Airlines right after WWII. She was one of the first round of stewardesses who were not also RN’s as they originally were required to be. Since all the RN’s were sent overseas for the war, airlines had to change that hiring practice. My mother had to wear high heals, had to be a certain weight, her hair had to be tied up so it did not touch her collar and if she got married she had to quit her job. No one gave that a second thought and I believe that practice remained in place until the late ’60’s!

I remember another story in the mid-70’s from a woman who worked, lived on her own, had a few credit cards in her name, then got married. Then got divorced. Once she was divorced her credit cards all were cancelled.

“Also, televangelists should be made illegal. Never have so few profited mightily from the naive many.” Jsri – you forgot about Congress. (P.S. Spent a lot of time in Newport, RI. One of my favorite places).

Greytdog, I’ve been having an interesting discussion with my 39 yr old son about the “urologist” in your area. He feels it’s the doctor’s right to refuse anyone he wants to. I totally disagree. Just found this clip of Alan Grayson, who represents Mt. Dora. I just love this man. At least one representative is on our side http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/node/36072

Since I am so much older than you are I can add an item about WWII that you may have forgotten. All rubber was redirected into the war effort. It was no longer available to be used in clothing, for example, women’s undies had buttons, no elastic waist bands. I lived in Newport RI during the war and was standing back inside the entry to a clothing store near the main square waiting for a bus when I noticed a young woman standing on the edge of the curb, suddenly wiggle her hips, and as my eyes popped, her undies slid down around her ankles. Without a hitch, as the bus came into view, she reached down, very demurely, stepped out of the errant garment and stuffed it into her purse. I never got to see her face and she never saw mine but I’m sure our expressions were priceless.

By the way, the leg makeup reminds me of John Boehner and his instant tan. Just as effective.

I agree that the Gawker news is teeth grinding. Their penchant for finding the most illiterate and, sadly, the ugliest person to comment is obscene. But in a similar vein, celebrity news would be put in the same category. I really don’t want to hear one more sex scandal involving a drug addled “celebrity”. Just yesterday I was in a dealers waiting room while my car was being serviced and the TV was locked onto a celebrity news channel and I was almost a basket case by the time I got out of there.

Another thing I would make illegal are the Viagra and Cialis commercials with the adoring wives hanging onto their husband’s arms while waiting for the “right moment”. I suspect that women might have a different take on this one and adoration may not be one of them.

Also, televangelists should be made illegal. Never have so few profited mightily from the naive many.

I could think of quite a few more but I’ll leave it up to others to fill in the blanks.

Since the discussion with He Who Will Not Be Named, DH & I have had a game going. If moral issues as defined by various religions dictated the law, what would become illegal? What would happen?

Dancing With The Stars = Instant felony. I know I should mind about this, but it’s not easy.

Fashion Week and Fleet Week are both going to be problematic.

Of course, it will be illegal to espouse or raise a child according to any other belief system. This will require the country to be split up into specialized regions. This will, of necessity, reinstate another time-honored tradition – the midnight dash for the border to friendlier territory. This tradtion gave us Rhode Island. However, since we’ve already got Rhode Island, I’m not sure we need to repeat it.

Dietary restrictions will be huge. Pork, especially, will be illegal in some areas and mandatory in others (barbecue country). Vegetarians…to be fair, we’ll have to give them a part of the country with a decent growing season. – maybe northern California and Oregon? They’ll have to share with the Seventh Day Adventists, but I’m sure they can come to some kind of understanding.

If there is a Zoroastrian enclave, burial will be illegal. The dead will all be left on high open air platforms to decay. This will make a penthouse view, well, not as valuable as it is elsewhere.

Border wars will, of course, be rampant as everybody tries to expand their territory.

Smuggling will grow by quantum leaps, thereby reducing the unemployment rate – do you think we can get organized crime to submit their stats accurately? Unregulated white lightning will lead to a return of blindness, dementia and death, helping out the doctors (except in Christian Scientist areas) and mortuaries.

My personal one – I think gawker news is immoral. You know, “Isn’t it awful, wanna see more?” I never want to see a camera in the face of another child, as they’re asked how they felt when their school chum picked up a semiautomatic and started mowing down K through 6. No, I don’t know how they felt and even if they could express it, I’m never going to know how they felt. By the time I can get to the clicker, I feel filthy. I’m thinking 5 years for the news reader, 10-20 for the producers. Maybe 2 for the camera people. I feel quite strongly about this one, and that’s our only criteria. Right?

You are much, much older than I, jsri, so I don’t remember the Great Depression very well. I am only eighty years old. And Grandma Katie, yes I do remember those silly rayon stockings. They didn’t last long did they. However, during WWII there was an acute shortage of silk stockings. The silk was being used to make parachutes. This was way, way before nylons. It was not uncommon for a sweet young girl to be coaxed out of her virtue by some fast talking guy dangling a pair of black market silk stockings before her eyes.

Good old American ingenuity came up with a dandy solution – sort of. Leg makeup. It came in various shades and was a slimy, smelly goo going on until it dried. It had the consistency of a thick lotion. You had to smooth it on until there were no streaks still showing. Then you had to enlist the aid of your mother or a sister to draw a straight line down the back of each leg with an eyebrow pencil to simulate seams.

There was a nasty drawback. It smeared off on the inside of the hem of your skirt and on chairs and sofas if you weren’t careful not to let your legs touch anything. It scrubbed off with soap and water – vigorously applied. Most gals only used it for ‘dress-up’ occasions. We usually wore bobby sox and saddle shoes to school, even through college.

Years later we had a friend who was in the textile industry. He told us that the manufacturers had come up with a way to include just one tiny locking step in the weaving process of silk/nylon stockings that would prevent them from ‘running’. Anyway, the manufacturers knew that if they made stocking that would never run, they would last indefinitely. That would cut into future lucrative sales. The same went for Gillette when they came up with a razor blade that would stay sharp forever. Gillette never let that one onto the market either. I think it is called ‘Planned Obsolescence’.

Heaven forbid that you should be seen in public with a run in your stocking! If you snagged it with your fingernail, before it became a visible run, you could sometimes stop it with clear nail polish, (that stuck to your leg.) Silk/nylons were an expensive luxury!

And oh yes, then there were the girdles, garter belts, sanitary napkin belts and later pantyhose. Plus often the mandatory multiple frilly petticoats for a ‘dress up’ date. There were plenty of us who hung onto our virginity, not necessarily out of moral conviction, but because getting in and out of all those contraptions was more effort than it was worth, especially in the back of a car at a drive in-movie. All that gear turned out to be more effective than a chastity belt or any other kind of birth control. You don’t know about chastity belts? Well, maybe I’ll tell you about those later.

I do admire your patience and persistence, Poolman. I’ve heard that is the mark of an Aries.

I am a Virgo. I’m not sure what that means besides being a virgin, which I’m not!

I’m curious about the all that time you spent with the troll however. I remember him touting an organization he is affilliated with and has done ‘counseling’ for. Is it a charitable, non-profit, (tax exempt) agency or what? I wonder what his level of education is and what his qualifications are to ‘counsel’, especially young, impressional women in crisis situations. He did mention putting his ideas out there in the “marketplace”, which implies a profit motive.
Certainly, he would not be ‘counseling’ with all sides of the issue and options for the girls, and men too. Sometimes that can do more harm than good.

Very interesting article Poolman, it has some real meat to chew on. I read a article years ago which stated, that scientists could sucessfully predict which infants would be liberal, they were trusting and calm, and which would be conservative, less trusting and prone to crying in strange situations.

Happy Friday Everyone! Good Friday to some. I hope everyone is staying high and dry and taking care of themself. Life can be exhausting. Sigh. Pass the pie!

Auntie Jean, I’ve been bloodied before, so no big deal. The head battering is something this aries has always engaged in. Sometimes I can actually break through and other times… not even a dent.

This time…no real visible cracks, but if the structure has a weak foundation, it will eventually topple. We never know the full impact of our actions from all the various dimensions that exist beyond what our limited minds can comprehend. But we are to keep trying. Cast your bread upon the water…

Faith is hard to measure in quantity or in effectiveness, but it certainly does provide the mortar to hold up the brick walls we construct. While most people build those walls to keep others out, they often do not realize those same walls close them in. That feeling of security is often a penitentary. When the bricks start to fall, where do you go to avoid a headache?

Do any of you remember RAyon stockings tha t came before nylons? They stretched as you wore them and be the end of the dayy you had them stretched and down around your ankles!
Hunger is one thing we were fortunate in missing. My mother would start mumbling in the spring about getting the garden turned over. Then one day when I came home from school there wooooould be a man , his horse and plow busily at work in the garden. MOther and Dad spent evenings raking and raking til the ground was smooth. Then the planting began.Then later the harvesting and the canning! and with no such thing as airconditioning and no freezers!
and then the bushels of peaches etc. So we are very well.

Happy EAster or just a great day . There are supposed to be showers in SoCal.

I am so sorry to hear about your friend who just passed and for the one who left you earlier in the year all because of lack of funds to see a doctor.

If it makes you feel any better, my friend told me what a friend of hers told her, “Life’s a bitch, and then you die”. And she is so right because we deal with life each and generally things don’t run as smoothly as we would like and so many times, things go terribly wrong and then we die. So I suppose we should live life each day making every minute count toward good feelings because when that next day does arrive, we will be gone forever. Hope that is not only food for thought, but that is brings a smile or a tiny bit of joy.

But right now I’m off to the market to get my husband his traditional Chocolate Bunny.

Whatever your persuasion, I wish all of you a Happy Easter and a lovely weekend. Instead of beating up on ourselves about the foolishness of others, what say we all share the chocolate of our choice, kick back and relax together. My husband will even break off chunks of his Bunny and pass them around. Major sacrifice!

Hubby and I have already had vacinations for Shingles, it is given to older people who have had Chicken Pox at some time in their life, since if they are exposed to Chicken Pox again, the virus can be reactivated. Children do not get Chicken Pox from people with Shingles, but older people can come down Shingles after they come into contact with someone with Chicken Pox, ask your doctor about the shot. My sister and mother both had Shingles, I decided I didn’t want to chance it after I saw how they suffered.

jsri, I always missed out on birthdays, too, not as badly as you, just that no one seemed interested. I always blamed it on Christmas (my bday is 18Dec), but now I realize it probably had a little more to do with how little money we had and my mother trying to make us all happy with Christmas.

I can tell you a few stories about the depression and Auntie Jean may have some too since we are roughly the same age. You are right, hunger was a constant. Not starvation but nagging hunger. And forget about junk food and snackery. They were either non-existent or unavailable. It was not until the fourth grade in the late 1930’s that I started school with clothes that had not been worn previously by a brother or a cousin. The shoes were new too but this was the point at which my dad had a new job and money was less of an issue.

Celebrations were few and far between and I remember coming home on a cold and rainy March day in 1933 expecting a birthday cake only to get off the school bus to find all our furniture piled up on the front lawn with a process server standing at the foot of the front steps refusing to allow my mother to get on the porch out of the rain. You see, my parents didn’t believe in debt and after they built the house three years earlier, any extra cash was used to pay down the mortgage but when my dad lost his job, the bank immediately started proceedings to repossess the house. That was by seventh birthday surprise.

Such experiences have given me some insight into what is going on in many communities today. I never thought I’d ever see a return to such days, but they are very real to a substantial part of our population. I have considerable empathy for their problems after having certain similar experiences etched into my memory bank.

no one’s puppetΔ, from what I read, it’s very unlikely I could get it again. The vaccine is really for chickenpox which is the same virus as Shingles, it sits dormant in your body until too much stress or some other incident triggers it. The first think I checked was “is it communicable” since I don’t want to give chickenpox to my granddaughter. The info I got was that it’s only communicable with direct skin contact of the blisters that form. Once the blister dry, it’s no longer communicable. I don’t really remember having the pox, just measles because I had to stay in a darkened room and take orange flavored “fever pills” when I just wanted to be outside playing. But I know I must have had the pox, too, because when my son caught it I was immune to it. (he had 4 pox, literally, unlike the neighbor kid who had them even on the bottom of his feet)

This reminds me of a whole other category of changes from the “good ole days.” No polio, no whooping cough, no diphtheria, no small pox. No entire families dying in one winter. I’ve been doing genealogy, researching mostly southern Quebec and northern Vermont. The Canadian records were kept by the churches, baptism, marriage and death. I see photocopies of the actual records and sometimes it’s page after page of burials. I’m very much in favor of vaccinations and I wish those who think they’re poison would study the subject seriously instead of just tbagging it all.

I look at Doonsbury every morning. This week they did an amusing series about the tbaggers. I recommend it to all, keeps some things in perspective.

I have a possible solution to unwanted pregnancies. The woman has always been held responsible for a pregnancy; now put that responsibility on the man. When a young male reaches puberty a vasectomy will be performed. The vasectomy can be undone when: a. he presents a marriage certificate; b. his wife consents to have children; c. a signed contracted that both will generously contributed their time and financial support to the raising of the children in the event of a divorce; d. if divorced a vasectomy will again be performed.

Years ago they did have a birth control pill for men however it caused bloodshot eyes when they drank alcohol so of course that didn’t go over well.

I heard the first billion “living” people on earth came around 1800; the second billion “living” people came around 1960; the third billion “living” people around 1990 and ???. Now in 2010 we are pushing 7 billion living. At this rate of reproduction how long before earth can no longer support them?

Whether it is man made or natural are we pushing this planet beyond its ability to survive? We have polluted the air, the land and the water; we have destroyed so many of the plants and animals in our greed and self-importance. There may come a day when abortion is mandatory; or an even perhaps an act of kindness. My mother told me – never s**t in the only bed you have to sleep in – a bit crude but to the point.

I listened to a gentleman very passionately rant on his opinion of politics, immigration, sex education, abortion, religion etc. After my head stopped spinning I came to the opinion his problem was more about white, Christian fetuses being aborted and the Invasion of the Brown People. I wonder how many others share his fear.

Yes I am rambling and ranting my two cents worth. Well I will add 1 cent more to our recent visitor…he should help himself to a bit of Hoo Hoo!…it’s great for releasing pent up frustration, stress and anger. I mean it. Really.

Happy Easter to those who believe. And a great day for those who don’t. We are supposed to have a beautiful weekend in central NY. Spring at last!!!!!

The name of that evangelical conman was Lester Roloff. And his success at skimming money from listeners was his ultimate undoing. He took a chunk of cash and bought an airplane that he used to shuttle himself around the southwest but sometime in 1982 he took off out of Corpus Christi but later crashed after getting into weather he couldn’t handle and killed himself somewhere near Houston. Unfortunately he also took along three young girls that were part of a church singing group and a woman who was associated with one of Roloff’s reform schools. BTW, Roloff Evangelistic Enterprises still exists and is out there still collecting money from the naive and uninformed of the world. Somehow, once the money tree gets planted, it gets harvested forever.

Your story also reminded me of the four sisters that lived in our town during the depression. They were all school teachers, unmarried and living together to take care of their mother because the idea of retirement was a foreign concept in the 1930’s and elderly relatives during those days were the responsibility of the family. They were a dour quartet but each taught up until the days that they finally passed away. Those were the times when a teacher had to stay unmarried and if they chose to wed, they were out of job. Some were even required to teach Sunday school.

Judith, I wonder some times how any of us lived through that and still have a sense of humor. And I remember the trauma of having to go into the drugstore to buy sanitary products. Now, along with Viagra, it’s about all they talk about on TV ads. (and cars and beer)

HoneyJo, Yes, the part of Women’s Lib where we can let it all hang out seems mostly what we’re stuck with. The part about women being as capable as men (unless they are tightly packaged) seems to have slipped their minds.

VGman, You do know how to produce chuckles. I’m sorry the service you went to wasn’t with a rousing choir to belt it out. We went to the Heritage Music festival in N’Awlins some years ago. Listened to several really energetic choirs singing gospel music. If one of these New England churches started that, I might be more inclined to go.

Grandma Katie, What have you seen change?, that’s easy to answer. How about “just about everything” except maybe for the mean spirited among us. And I’m glad you write about what the depression was like. I grew up a little later, but still managed to go hungry sometimes and that was in the late 40’s. I think that’s why I love food so much now and probably why my gall bladder is acting up. Although I don’t eat it often, pie is one of my favorites. I sometimes wonder if the people who are so very, very picky about what they’re willing to eat were ever hungry.

I remember having to wear a girdle/garterbelt with nylon stockings to church, starting at a ridiculous age. God forbid an 8 year old girl should jiggle! And there weren’t any pantyhose. Being a tomboy, the minute I got home the stuff came off, starting in the front hallway and leaving a trail all the way to the bedroom.

When pantyhose came in, the old guy bosses still didn’t like them because there wasn’t any seam that signalled you were wearing stockings. A particular coffeeshop in town was known for regular ‘seam checks’ for the waitresses, who finally opted to use eyebrow pencil to fake it. When the boss found out, he had a fit til they somehow managed to get him to try to find any old-style stockings for sale. Game over.

In the seventies, I waitressed at a place that insisted you wear a white bra under your white shirt, so no one would think you were braless. Might have well have attached flashing neon lights to the area. Hey, boys – look over here!

Remember the other garterbelt-like device that held up your menstrual pad? Uncomfortable, always slipped/leaked and the pad itself was the size of a hoagie. Worn under the girdle, mind you. We had more straps, strings and dangly bits under our clothes….just to hold up stuff that nobody was supposed to be noticing anyway. And it was like sitting on gravel. Lumps everywhere.

Just this morning I overheard a conversation a coworker had with his intern. We are in radio, and he said if he ever did another morning show and went out on remotes or what have you, he’d get a really hot, smokin’ young girl to do his show with. that would really get people to come out to events and get people to tune in as well. What a comforting, warm fuzzy feeling to know that even in this day and age, my education, experience and talent mean nothing because it no longer comes in a tight, size 4 20-year-old package.

Here’s a good one that I love to tell. It’s all about the religious totem pole in my mother’s mind.

I was young (probably 8 or 9) and on vacation with my parents and younger brother. We came to a KOA campground in Missouri somewhere and it was Saturday. My mom has this thing about making the Lord’s Day on vacation seem as close as possible to how we spend it while at home.

So, once we pitched our tent on Saturday–we didn’t pull up the stakes until Monday morning.
After setting up our campsite, we got in the car and drove around the town looking for a church to worship in the following day. Mom likes to be ready and know where we are going–so the search began.
Let’s see……
No Reformed churches…Okay….How about Methodist church? None. Any Lutheran churches? None. No Baptist,
No Methodist, No Lutheran, No Baptist…..
There was a Catholic church….we kept driving…

“Let’s keep looking,” she replied to all of us in the sweltering car (air conditioning? are you kidding me?)
I piped up, “There’s a church called the Assembly of God.”
That was the one. Mom decided we would attend that church the following morning.
All I remember was a VERY long service and the minister pouring oil on people’s heads.

But the worst was when we returned to camp. It was hot and mom made us sit at the campsite within earshot of other children swimming and splashing in the pool of the campground.

Just thinking about HRH sophia EQ post, perhaps, the vaccination to prevent Shingles will be available with no co-pay under the new Healthcare Bill. Even if you’ve already had Shingles be sure to ask your physician if you can get it again. I think I read somewhere that you can get Shingles more than once.

HRHSofia – sorry I missed that you were ill. Glad to see you back.
Loved your story about the nylons.
Last fall I had the privilege of having students from a Universiity in Gerontology visit.They had to keep logs of their visits, and write a paper about one of the people they visited. They had a list of questions to ask for the paper they were to write.
One was how many t hings have we seen change, how many new thingshave we seen, and the best one. What have you been doing since you retired. My response was I had never retired! Was teaching right up until the stroke!
A new semester has begun, I have had visits from 6 or so
, spring break has been this week, expect more next week.
Any time panty hose go into oblivion, the better!
BTW, one of my former students got a job on a cruise line in the south Pacifiiic as a massage therapist. One of the requirements was to wear panty hose while giving a massage!
And that was just 4 or 5 years ago!

Since ‘history’ has been so badly rewritten by all those fat old white guys and quite a few skinny, gun toting middle age guys as well, I think it’s the duty of those of us of a more mature demeanor to explain to the younguns just what it was like back in “the day.”
My new policy is to tell the story directly to anyone in their 20’s and 30’s who is willing to listen (and I’m sometimes surprised how many are) about what it was really like.

An example: in about 1967, I worked for one of the still major airlines in their reservation office. We were 300 people, enclosed in a private, barn sized room, in rows of telephone positions, making airline reservations. The public never, ever saw us. Yet, the company policy was that ALL WOMEN wear nylon stockings (they were allowed to do the pinch test) and skirts. Pants were NOT ALLOWED. Eventually, they changed the dress code to allow PANTS SUITS or PANTS OUTFITS only. At that point, I became pregnant with my son and left the company. By the time I was back in the work force, 6 years later, we had been through Woodstock Nation and a lot of things had changed, some for the better, some not, and now the pendulum seems to have swung a bit to far the other way…(I have no interest in seeing people’s underwear or knowing just who is wearing thong underwear or how big their belly fat rolls are.) Many young people have trouble believing that this story is true, but it certainly is. Sure, being required to wear stockings is not such a very big deal. Still, I think that company went beyond their authority in controlling this little aspect of our lives.

I would love to hear more stories of what it was like, back in the “good old days” for some of the more mature folks who come to this blog. Since it’s HIStory (wars, gold rushes and coups) and not HERstory (little stuff, getting through the day, keeping the kids happy), a lot of the details get lost in the cracks. Like most good movements, the Women’s Liberation movement got highjacked by the extremes and went in some pretty weird directions, but a lot of the little stuff has changed for the better and some of the big stuff, too. (A lot of men are becoming adept at taking care of the children and doing other “women’s” work and they find they can be good at it.)

Greytdog, that sounds unbelievable. If not for the pharmacists who won the “right” to not fill prescriptions for medications they disagree with (never a peep about not filling Viagra scrips) it would seem fictitious. I guess the deviciveness we saw in the health care debate has bled out into the whole medical CARE world. Thank you for bringing this “doctor” to our attention.

Good morning M&H porch/parlor folks. Here’s a tidbit to nosh upon while drinking your morning coffee/tea:

A Mt. Dora FL urologist has posted a lovely sign at his office informing potential patients that if they voted for/support Obama, they are heavily advised to seek care elsewhere. Now normally, most patients would just blow this off and go elsewhere. The problem is that Mt. Dora while a quaint little village also has a large retirement community. And is happily located within driving distance (approx.2 hrs drive time each way) to Tampa (HUGE medical complex at USF) and Gainesville (UF medical school) and within 45mins of Orlando. BUT most of the folks in Mt Dora don’t want to drive 4 hours for a 30 min MD office visit. In essence then, this MD is demanding a political purity test for his patients to determine treatment. Now he says that he does treat patients who support Obama but that he prefers they went elsewhere. Doesn’t that make you feel safe and secure with him? Doesn’t that make you feel as if you’re getting the best possible care from this MD? Per the bioethics dept at UF Med School this guy is walking the finest of fine lines in “do no harm” – I think, however, now that he’s been “exposed” he may have to change his tune or come under deeper scrutiny by the medical ethics board. Either way, I know I would never want any friends or relatives to be treated by this Dr. Jack Cassell of Mt. Dora. After all, how would you know if he is withholding treatment or doing his best if he hates your politics? here’s the article http://bit.ly/aQqEmi

Poolman, 3-4 hours with those people is probably too much for the human mind to tolerate. I hope you came away with your good wits intact and that they haven’t subtly changed your brain. It’s a good one and I personally, would like to keep reading what you have to say.

Easier, thank you for your kind words. I’m improving and am very thankful that I have good health insureance. The anti-viral that doesn’t cure Shingles, just makes it more tollerable cost my insurance co. $300. It only helps with the pain and itching. I wonder how many people are not able to pay for that stuff and since it only helps the symptoms, must choose not to use it.

Well I just spent probably 3 or 4 hours over on Neil’s blog. I sure can’t keep up with these fast texters/typers. I hope it wasn’t in vain, but at least I was able to articulate better some of the points that were brought up. Sometimes the fundamentalists are too far gone to try to pull them off that fast train to Armageddon. Anyway, I got accused of being judgmental again and promoting abortions and murder. I hope it ended alright, I think he finally gave up on my slow responses. I just can’t understand why if you are pro-choice you are all of a sudden pro-abortion. I hate abortions and wish we never had to perform another one from this day forward. But then I hate war more and wish we’d get our heinies out of those foreign lands. And I hate greed, and poverty, and pollution…

No Auntie Jean, no difference between the two groups, one is just more accepted on these shores as the other, but the thinking is the same: Mine and my beliefs are Gods chosen and nobody else is. They forget that God created us all. Fundamentalist muslims prey on vulnerable young men and women to have them turn themselves into martyrs for the cause. However, the top brass never do offer themselves in ultimate sacrifice. Were I these young men and women, I would say to myself, humm… Why is that they get to live and I do not? Shouldn’t they be the first of immolate themselves if the rewards are so great in the afterlife? Fundamentalism robs people of their reasoning ability. Likewise the fundamentalists over here have shown this scary close-mindedness, which excludes any other thinking, is not accepting of differences, and use God to commit the worst deeds and as long as nobody else knows about these deeds, or is looking, they are ok. Condeming actions in public they engage in themselves in private appears to be their strong suit. And in public, they do not suffer dissent gladly. It is just the saddest state of affairs for humankind.

This is a true story. Over thirty years ago I knew a young girl. She was quite limited in her abilities, but was very sweet, naïve and gullible all her life. (There was a medical reason why, but that’s another story.) When she graduated from high school, her widowed grandmother enticed her to come live with her with the promise of a ‘grand inheritance’. Everyone knew there was no such thing, but no one could persuade the girl differently. Essentially she spent most of her adult life being grandmother’s housekeeper, cook, nurse, errand runner and all around flunky, (slave?). The only thing the girl got out of it was room and board all those years. Grandmother had been wealthy and socially prominent at one time. She liked to keep up appearances.

The girl did meet a nice young man at their church and was eventually engaged. Grandmother put the kibosh on that romance. (She certainly didn’t want to lose her maid!) So the girl never married. When grandmother died, after all the bills were paid, the ‘grand inheritance’ amounted to the old bitch’s clothes and a sewing machine.

By this time, the girl was a woman in her late 50’s and had never lived on her own. She insisted on staying in the same neighborhood of her grandmother’s. That was all she had ever known in her adult life and was terrified of the outside world.

Her relatives provided her with a modest monthly financial contribution to support her and she got a small apartment. (They had always given her pocket money since grandmother had never given her a dime.) One night a man broke into her apartment house. Some painters had left a ladder against the second story window of her apartment. It was an attempted rape, but she screamed and fought back, so penetration never took place before the neighbors called the police. However, he beat her badly and she was taken to the hospital.

Of course, while at the hospital they took her medical history and did a thorough physical. Her very first pelvic examination ever revealed early cervical cancer. She had a hysterectomy and has been cancer free ever since. She is now 87.

While she was recovering from the surgery, several weeks later her elderly mother died. So this poor woman suffered a triple whammy of traumas over a very short period of time.

I visited her at that time and she told me with much enthusiasm about this ‘minister’ she had been listening to on the radio. She clung to his every word. I had never heard of him. It has been a long time, but I believe his name was Lester Orloff. I listened to him a time or two to see what her devotion to him was all about. I think he was like a father figure to her. Anyway, he was the typical ‘hell, fire and brimstone’ preacher and had a home and school somewhere in Texas for ‘wayward boys’. Naturally, he spent most of the time during his broadcasts soliciting donations for all his ‘good works’, enumerated at great length. The woman was regularly sending him more than HALF of the financial help from her relatives, which kept her teetering on the edge of poverty.

NO ONE could persuade her of what a fraud he was until, are you ready for this….. the bastard was arrested for gross physical abuse of the boys in his ‘school’ and sent to jail. The ‘school’ was closed. I don’t know if sexual abuse was involved. Apparently he strongly believed in
‘spare the rod and spoil the child’ so wielded it unmercifully.

Can anyone here tell me the difference between Fundamentalist ‘Christians’ and ‘Fundamentalist Muslims’? It looks to me as if they are the flip sides of the same coin. They prey on vulnerable people.

Hi, all–Don’t know if anyone watched the sentencing of Scott Roeder, who killed Dr. Tiller. If anything shows the complete disconnect of these fanatics from any rational thought, that was it.

Reminds me of those who show up here and go on and on and on….they can’t conceivably expect that they’ll change anyone’s mind but it’s more important for them to hear themselves spout the same dreck than anything else.

to HRH sofia EQ: Hope all is well healthwise now, welcome back! I lost a good friend in high school to a botched abortion. Her father was a nurse practiioner and would have helped her had he known. It was a heartbreaker for her parents. Society failed both the unborn baby and the young woman. Abortion should not be used by politicians to further their selfish agendas, period.

When I first found H&M’s blog a couple years ago, I was fascinated by Helen’s ability to cut to the chase of a subject by offering keen insights delivered with a quirky sense of humor and crackling dialog. I agree in spades because I happen to be married to a spectacular woman of similar age who thinks very much the same way although she might express comparable feelings somewhat less directly. So I have the best of all worlds and I feel assaulted whenever one of the obnoxious trolls hijacks this blog and spews insensitive gibberish all over the pages. The latest one would be better served by staying with his own blog where he gets nothing but cloying reinforcement for his 2nd century B.C ideas. I’d provide a link but you might barf all over your keyboard. But I will warn you that it seems to be nothing more than a collection of right-wing religio-fascists who scratch one another’s backs ad infinitum and ad nauseam. It is a site devoted to two thousand year old thinking delivered in an indecipherable tongue that seems to have no meaning beyond what the babblers ascribe to it. While they spend a lot of time arguing arcane semantics, there is a whole world that has passed them by. A total waste of time and twenty-first century bandwidth

BTW, AZ used to be one of our favorite states to visit. We’ve been able to visit most of its nooks and crannies and would like to go back again some day but health and age have a way of getting in the way. Nevertheless we have many fond memories of visits there.

We even took an option on a piece of property there once but passed on it in the end. On the other hand, AZ politics leaves a lot to be desired. We lived in NH for a number of years and its similar right wing political system was a turn off.

Hello AZ! Our choices are tweedle dee or tweedle dum, white good ole boys. Have you checked out Rodney Glassman? Short of a major flow of rationality seeping into the local populous, I don’t see much of a chance for any progressive change.

LibertyLover – another AZironian here. I would not be surprised if McCain runs as in indy if Hayseed beats him. My big question is WHY ARE WE NOT CAPITALIZING ON A DIVIDED GOP? Now would be as good a time as any to run a strong Democrat and turn this bass ackwards state partly blue!

Yes, I live in AZ as well. I thought that was correct about you. I hope your pool building business is coming back to life…

What do you think about the JDH/ McCain race? Think the teapartiers will show up and vote out McCain? Do you think McCain would pull a Lieberman and run as an Independent in the Fall? I can’t imagine JD winning in the general.

What a very insightful post. The people that you describe have an agenda, and it isn’t really to change anyone’s mind, it is to monopolize the discussion and drown out valid opinions that may not agree with their opinion for whatever reason.

This post has devolved into a divisive issue about abortion, but it shouldn’t have. There is just a fundamental difference in world view on display. I doubt very much that anyone’s views will be changed. It is interesting to me that one particular poster who happens to be male can never understand the issue from a woman’s point of view seems to want to monopolize the discussion from a paternalistic religious point of view.

As my mother used to say about my brothers when they were needling me, “they’re just trying to get a rise out of you.” So True. I think that in the end, that is their only agenda.

James, you actually made the whole point here. Your wife had a choice, SHE HAD THE CHOICE, to opt for safe, legal, affordable abortion if she so decided. This is what dumb-ass, pampered white men who can afford to send their mistresses to Switzerland for abortions are trying to take away from women in the US.

Yes, not every man heads for the hills when the woman he is with has an unplanned pregnancy but please acknowledge that this happens more times than we can count.

Perfectly said again.
Here in Colorado we are facing another round from the extreme right, the Personhood Amendment is going to show up yet again on the Nov. ballot. We defeated it by 2/3’s last time. Hopefully we’ll do it again.
Everybody should just mind their own business about this. Live your own life and stay out of mine.

Thank you, Margaret and Helen, for giving us your wise words and this forum for discussion. And thank you Congenial Gang for your rational posts.

I’ve just been catching up after a week or so of not reading the posts (Granddaughter visiting, gall bladder attack with trip to the out of town ER, agrivated by shingles) and I come back to this?

One does get a different prespective, reading all the posts at once, and I feel ASSAULTED.

It’s clearly apparent, by the number of posts from Neil, that his own blog doesn’t get many readers. He seems to be here to get his howling out of the wilderness he has created for himself and into rational people’s ears. But really, he shouldn’t take advantage of Helen and Margaret like that. It’s not fair for anyone to USE them like that.

I don’t debate abortion with anyone. I believe each of us makes some difficult choices in life. But this week, in the local paper, I learned of a case where the child would clearly have been better off aborted. She was 3 months old when her father decided to do his own post birth abortion. After sexually abusing her.

I know personally of 5 or 6 illegal abortions done back before they were legal. Each woman was young and trained as Catholics. As Catholics, they considered birth control wrong. Then reality hit them. They clearly would have benefited from a reasonable birth control policy and some good old fashioned education. (well, maybe not old fashioned because I’ve found from my genealogical research that many people had sex before marriage and produced children who were labeled “illigitimate” for life.)

Easier-
Oh, I agree!
The evidence piled up rather rapidly that there was no common ground , didn’t it ?
Just saying you should be kind to yourself.
There’s value in this whole long thread, even the attempted seige by whatzizname.
This is not a subject of comfort or hope. We need to talk about it.
Scroll finger got a much needed workout too.
Be kind to yourself too, JuneauJoe.

Whew! I’m relieved to know tha you and your wife are safe and sound. I’m sure all our friends here at M&H’s are too. It sounds as if you had a harrowing ride! There will be lots of mopping up to do.

What’s that again about there’s no such thing as ‘Climate Change’?

We have been out and about all day. so I won’t get into the ‘troll’ story now. Later perhaps. But does anyone remember Jim and Tammy Faye Baker and their evangalical religious scan? They were in it for the fame and fortune until it caught up to them. Religion can be BIG BUSINESS without a shread of altruism.

To be sure, MOST truly devout people honestly believe and practice their faith but the difference is they don’t need to parade it with all the fanfare.

Juneau Joe, my deepest condolences on the loss of your friend. Hopefully we will eventually move forward to the single payer option.

I must admit that POTUS is certainly teaching me patience. I’m usually considered the pragmatist among my friends, but compared to Pres. Obama, I rush in where angels fear to tread. . . I am beginning to appreciate his pragmatic approach, even when it drives me batty. To be sure, I don’t fully understand the latest news – opening up off-shore drilling, and I wish he’d declared Cooks Inlet off limits as well as Bristol Bay. . . – but from what I’ve read so far, it is but a first step in a series of steps towards true energy independence. We shall wait, watch, listen, speak out, and see what happens.

In the meantime, don’t you wish we could do this with the trolls who stop by:

We are doing just fine. Though we live within a few blocks of one of the out-of control rivers, our neighborhood elevation is about 50 feet above flood level but others within a few miles are in serious trouble. Some people are literally getting wiped out of their homes. We were out in the teeth of the storm at its worst yesterday on a blood bank run and we just managed to get off the main highway before they shut it down. In my 60 years of driving, I have never seen such a torrent of water coming at us. It was like blasting the way past a fire hose.

My god, I can’t believe the latest troll. What rock has this buffoon been hiding under? The sheer gall and stupidity of a dolt like that taking over the site is an abomination. I can only hope that Matthew has a way of blocking IP addresses. Plenty of women here have presented this dimwit with an ultimatum, “get pregnant, carry a fetus to term and you can weigh in on the matter, otherwise STFU”. Of course he just blundered on with trivialities. Such gross ignorance in unbelievable but after watching the level of discourse offered by the tea partiers, it seems to be the way of the world. Wouldn’t you like to be able to turn the clock back in some areas of life?

alaskapi, LOL, but I would beg to disagree, the sheer manner of repetitive entries kind of sort of are telling me that it is not just a matter of disagreeing with another point of view at play here. I suspect some kind of compulsive obsessive behavior, coupled with irrationality. Of course I am no psychiatrist, but I am just slightly baffled.

There are petitions floating around online too.
—————
Easier-
Never apologize for attempting to carry on a conversation with someone with a different view.
When it’s obvious there is no common ground , it’s time to quit… not before.
Irrational rules of pi :-)

When I came to the blog this evening, I saw the number of entries and could not believe my eyes. I say some mental illness is at play here. Please all, let us really not feed the troll anymore. I was guilty of it also and regret that. After a while, I saw he could not be reasoned with, and so, after I have been scrolling and his opinions simply do not matter to me, can’t reason with an insane person. Simple as that.

Juneau Joe-
I’m so sorry about your family friend.
Grandma Katie-
I don’t know what DiscoveryTLC plans to film as SP’s Alaska. maybe her dumb Mama grizzly routine…
We got her endorsement /ad for the Iditarod pulled by complaining about the quitter being a stinko choice for a race for dogs and mushers who never quit.
Maybe we can get her pulled off Discovery …?
@LisainVA on March 31, 2010
at 11:09 AM- well said. thank you.

“The Advisory Panel which has the ability to make more or less binding judgments on saying this particular expensive treatment actually doesn’t do any good medically and so we are not going to pay for it. That is actually going to save quite a lot of money. We don’t know how much yet. The CBO gives it very little credit but most of the health care economists I talk to think that’s going to be a really, a really major cost saving.”

The new law’s mandating insurance for previous conditions is a good thing. Some other parts of the law are also good.

Maybe your friend would still be alive if his timing was better and he sickened four or five years from now. My sympathies to you all.

However, if you think this new health insurance bill will end rationing and so called “death panels,” you are mistaken. There isn’t enough money to go around, and no matter if the entity is private or public, it will cut costs any way it can. Paul Krugman made my point.

MargaretandHelenFan, not all cases are as you describe. My wife and I suffered several hellish days as we both contemplated an abortion. We were in it together because we were and are equal partners.

It was her choice, but I helped, and I would have supported whatever she felt was best, just as she supported our buying farm land or my storm chasing. It was a false alarm, but a later misscarage was pretty bad emotionally.

I know those health care emails. Spent a lot of time tracing back, and debunking every stitch of information in them. Then emailing the truth back to every email on the fwd, fwd, fwd to the nth degree the corrected info. Along with information of just exactly where it originated. Making sure I noted that there is no such organization as the United Nations International Health Organization. (that one seems most popular)

With all the correct information, I included all my sources and invited folks to please look this stuff up themselves.

Crazy. The misinformation that was and still is floating around. I’m glad health care reform passed. It is not exactly what most of us were looking for, but it is a start and the first step is always the hardest one.

The way I see it, pro-lifers trust a woman to raise a child, but they think she is too dumb to make the decision rather to carry a pregnancy to term. Ridiculous. They just like to stick their nose where it doesn’t belong at one of the most traumatic moments in a woman’s life.

These are the stories that need to be told. Real people are hurt by these tea party idiots and their behaviors. I think it’s a crying shame that it took this long for the US to have any kind of health care reform. We are the only first-world/industrialized nation that has not had national health for *years.* Those lies about the UK and Canada that the insurance companies are pushing are just that — lies.

My first office job was with an insurance firm — they make their money by *not* providing the coverage that people pay for. While I don’t think that the current bill went far enough (no public option), it is at least a start and can be built upon.

Good heavens – over 500 comments and at least half are from the same cut n paste douchebag. Yaaaaawwwwn. Enough already. Please do not call it by name, it only encourages it to come back begging for more.

Yesterday, during the marathon with the latest TROLL, I mentioned that a 26 year old family friend was in ICU with Kidney and LIVER failure. He had no insurance because of his pre-existing condition.

he passed away today. Another victim of the Bush Health Care Policies. He was working this past weekend and his legs got swollen and they hurt, He went to ER and they said he had hours or days to live.

If he had insurance, he could have had regular checkups, gotten on a transplant list and gotten dialysis.

Thank You President Obama so that this tragedy of denying sick people health insurance can stop.

ever notice it’s mostly, if not exclusively, those same old white guys who get their panties in a twist over abortion? man, they just burn my toast. then, to make it worse, they’re likely some Right-wing, “Conservative” A-hole who thinks he needs to tell every woman what she should and should not do to her body BUT he’s also for small, unobtrusive government.

Haven’t been here in a while but this was worth the trip. Bravo Helen. I have said myself, “Until men can get pregnant they need to shut up about this issue.” Of course, as we can see here, some men still think they have a right to weigh in. But, men, you don’t. YOU JUST DON’T and that’s just the way it is. Get over it. You made the decision to selfishly NOT use a condom during sex and that’s the last input you have in the matter. No more decisions for you.

These conservatives who scream “Pro-Life” (aka – anti-women) are the same people screaming less government – except when it involves MY body, MY womb, MY life, whom i chose to sleep with and if I choose to do so before marriage. Then by all means, government should have a say. Jeez, but you’re a pack of hypocrites. (BTW, I was 52 when i married for the first time. Was I really supposed to stay a virgin until then?)

How many times have we heard of pregnant women left by their sperm doners to fend for themselves with no support, financial or otherwise? this is an old story. I don’t see conservatives screaming about forced child support let alone forced 2am feedings, forced diapering, helping with homework, teaching to ride a bike, or paying for braces, doctors visits, school clothes and college tuition. If women are to be forced to mothers, the men who got them pregnant should be forced to be fathers in every aspect of the matter.

But, to that point, I too, had an ectopic pregnancy (while using birth control, thank you very much) and the father left me to pay for all the medical bills which were considerable because my doctor neglected to get pre-approval from my HMO for EMERGENCY SURGERY. Can you imagine what this guy would have contributed if i actually carried this baby to term?

Then there was the young girl who came to work in my office as a receptionist. She was single, two month’s pregnant and couldn’t get her bills covered on our company’s insurance because it was a pre-existing condition.

Thing is, if conservatives think abortions didn’t happen before it was legalized and they think they are going to stop if it is made illegal again, then frankly they are too stupid to vote. Abortions did and will happen, they just won’t happen safely. So all you’re really protesting against is safe and competant medical care for women. Way to go.

Face it guys. You can sit on your moral high horse and act like your opinion matters, but it doesn’t. You don’t have a damn clue what this is like for women who have to make such a decision. You collectively have no interest in taking full responsiblity for your role in pregnancy when you are not ready for it. Therefore, I say from the bottom of my heart, SHUT UP!

But then again, we live in a society where insurance does not cover birth control pills but it does cover Viagra. ‘Nuff said.

P.S. Roxy, all due respect, stop watching Glenn Beck. Of all your sweeping and misinformed generalizations, the one i resented the most was about volunteering time. I’ve worked in many soup kitchens, side by side with other liberals. Not a conservative in sight. And FACT: It’s liberals who donate more money to charity, not conservatives, and FACT: Cities with more liberals than conservatives have more bookstores per capita. (Time Magazine.)

JuneauJoe: Thank you so much for the definition of the WWGKD – I despise being old and out of touch with youth. I am dumbfounded that Alaskan families had 3 – 19 kids, although without birth control readily available, I suppose sex would be the best entertainment available. Like you state, money didn’t grow on trees and I’m sure teevee was a rarity. And, yes, I find it very hypocritical that Viagra is paid for by insurance, but birth control pills absolutely are not [after all, it’s only purpose is to help ‘females’, so in that case, they need to be concerned about their bottom line]. I believe the drug manufacturers have been talking about ‘male’ birth control for years and I’m still wondering when that will occur. Sounds like you have three wonderful daughters and are so right about them going to need all the options available despite the neo-cons trying with all their might to make abortion illegal by overturning Roe v Wade. They [especially the males involved] have no idea what is involved in bearing children, so I say until they get pregnant, they need to STFU and sit down! Thanks again for your terrific input here – I’ve been a lurker for a long time, but this article made me join in since Helen is a fabulous author laying it all out here and always with wit! Talk to you next article!

The biggest problem with Neil’s righteous biblical quotes and ruminations is that until our Supreme Court enacts law emphatically stating that ‘a fetus is a ‘viable human being with all the rights and privileges of any other human being from the date of its conception’, [btw, add another year to your age when this occurs] Neil can argue until doomsday and quote his bible all he wants, [there are some of us who are agnostic or atheist so his bible holds no water for us] then a fetus remains ‘a fetus’ – period. Neil chooses to look at a fetus as a human being and chooses to call abortion murder.

Women don’t chose to have abortions for ‘birth control’ reasons – they have birth control pills available and take ‘primary’ responsibility for birth control. I don’t see men generally trying to avoid getting a female pregnant since their use of condoms is done to prevent STDs rather than prevent pregnancy. Until men ‘accept primary responsibility and can become pregnant’, they have no right to interfere in a woman’s decision.

Nothing else to say except an abortion must remain legal and be between a woman and her doctor. No one else has the right to any opinion on the subject.

AlaskaPi – I’m getting annoyed with ‘Discovery Channel. First 19 and Counting and now Palin and Alaska.
Are they trying too disicourage anyone from seeing the beautiful Alaska? or do they plan lots of shots of Palin, her pile of messy hair and winks? Yuk
Guess which shows I won’t watch.

Thanks J uneauJoe for the note.
Jean – I have laughed so much over Palin and Noroth Korea that I still have tears running down my face.
Greytdog — nice to see you again but what the heck is GoogleChrome? new one to me.

For awhile we had Craig, then Gregorio, and now Neil. Geez. what a good time they must have or they must have too much time on their hands. If we scroll on pass, maybe they will all go away. and that includes Colorful. She should go back to school and learn to type!

Poolman- We have had an extraordinarily mild winter, courtesy (partly) of El Nino, but sun is always welcome in Southeast AK, where we mostly sit under cloudy skies. You can hang onto your 83 deg though- we’d melt faster than our icefields are :-)
Ah- the foolish SP…
IF Discovery follows through, I’m hoping they film her at home, next to dead, polluted , no-fish Lake Lucille with helicopter gunships whoppedy-whoppin overhead , looking for wolves to slaughter…
THAT’s SP’s Alaska.
Thank you Helen and Margaret for having us all in- even those who hog the pie here.

How ’bout that Sarah Palin, anyhow? Isn’t she just the icing on the cake for all those enamored by her down-home charm, backwoods wit, and colonial patriotism. By golly. She is doing it for a cool mill. Wow. Just wow. A celebrity, you betcha.

Colorful, Tone it down! Don’t HAVE an abortion and don’t SUPPORT anyone who would. Period. No one is advocating murder. Support early sex education to equip the next generation with knowledge to avoid getting pregnant! TALK TO YOUR KIDS! For the sake of Him who told us, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. (Luke 18:16)

And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:13)

You do not hold the book that names those whom are destined for anywhere, so quit condemning people and instead, pray for their souls.

Sorry about these bullies, Lord. If they are sheep, please help them listen to Your voice. If they have a ministry, please let them stay on that ride and not get to driving over the median again. I’m sorry they make us believers look like idiots to most. Then again, we’re pretty used to that in America nowadays. They think life is a crusade. Conquer and subdue, their mantra. ALL of the LAW they need to heed is: LOVE God and LOVE your neighbor. Please occupy them with something CONSTRUCTIVE that will further Your kingdom, I pray.

We are years apart in age and generations, and yet your views on life resonate with my own. Reading your latest entry has me smiling and cheering inside. I would love to hear you speak in person with many of the politicians you so often write about there too. Continue sharing!

It’s a shame that the comment section is used as public forum to digress into personal political views and yell at the blogger. It is ridiculous the number of paragraph(s) long comments. If you’re not supportive of the blogger or at least respectful, please take your conversations to forum set-up for discussions like this.

Hey Greyt!
vgman, didn’t get time to answer you a couple days ago…
Hey Grandma Katie, judith!
Poolman- kindness such as yours makes up for many small faux pas
Oh- how does one say faus pas in the plural?
JuneauJoe- whopper avalanche off Mt Juneau this morn. Mt goats visible, almost time for bears to wake up…
Jean- Love your SP idea! Need to figure out how to mitigate damage of those 2 personalities on all the everyday folks in N Korea though…
ah jeez ,colorful fell off the shelf and bonked it’s head on the keyboard again…
WWGKD?

Well I can admit when I am wrong and as the regular visitors here know, I learn something new everyday. I have to admit I was wrong about Neil. I thought he was open to learning, but it seems he was just here to force his opinions and beliefs on us. It appears he has it all figured out, unlike the rest of us. I don’t know what his motivation for hijacking this blog is, but it seems to please him. I sense an air of self-righteousness, but it could be an innocent boldness of spirit. Blog personalities tend to be bolder than the individual face to face.

As an imperfect human being on this side of eternity, I have and will continue to pray for you Neil, but I suggest you ask the Holy Spirit to guide and teach you as you walk in the light of His presence. From where I sit you have taken several mis-steps. But I am not going to judge you for it. As a believer I feel oligated to point to these things. May God richly bless you and cause His face to shine on you and in your life, I pray.

And your canonization process comment didn’t prove anything anyway. How do you know that your favorite verses are the ones that (allegedly) don’t belong?

You assume that making abortion illegal will make the women criminals. Why not just punish the doctors? And the conditions are unsanitary in many places today — http://realchoice.blogspot.com/ — and 90% of abortions were done by doctors before Roe v. Wade, with another 5% done by trained people.

And don’t forget the other passages on judging, such as: Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.” (John 7:24, ESV)

He commands us to make judgments.

“You do realize the canonized bible was assembled by men and voted on by men. Much was left out”

Yes, the parts that didn’t belong. I also know this: All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, (2 Timothy 3:16, ESV)

God was quite capable of transmitting exactly what He wanted in the original writings and their compilation.

Well after coming in for work and checking the site, I thought I had gone to Neil’s blog by mistake. I will never worry about posting too much anymore! Wow! I wanted to respond to a lot of the posts, but there are so many areas. Let’s see, I’ll get this out of the way from Neil’s post directed at my statements this morning at 7:26am.

“No one claimed that making abortion illegal will solve the problem completely. But it will reduce them. Laws do reflect what a society views as right and wrong. And they help protect the innocent!”

Making drugs illegal has not solved any of the problems of drug abuse or curtailed organized crime. As a matter of fact, it has made the problem worse and turned addicts into criminals, filling our jails and prisons and burdening the taxpayer. Making abortion illegal (again) will only make criminals of girls and doctors and put the procedure back into unsanitary settings. It will not stop abortion. The wealthy will still get them, even if they have to go across the border to another country. A law does not stop the desire or need for them. It may give you a moral “feel good,” but does nothing to stop – or slow the unwanted pregnancy problem.

“And as I pointed out and as the verse you pasted showed, Jesus didn’t teach to never judge, He said not to judge hypocritically — which, ironically, is what you are doing right now. Think about it: You are judging me for judging. If that isn’t hypocrisy I don’t know what is. Work on that .”

Work on this. I was not judging you, I was PROVING to you that Jesus DID say NOT to judge. You misinterpret the scripture here. It means that we should basically mind our own business and work on improving ourselves so we can be a better help to others. I think you need to look up the meaning of judgment and hypocrisy in a dictionary. Here’s another one for you:

“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” (Luke 6:37) No hypocritical judging here.

“Oh, and the red letters don’t have more weight than anything else. Jesus is God, and the Bible is the word of God. It all turned out just like He wanted it to.”

You do realize the canonized bible was assembled by men and voted on by men. Much was left out. When Christianity became the national religion, men formed the rules and determined what scriptures would be considered worthy of inclusion. That is the beginnings of the Roman Catholic Church. Even today, the Vatican and the elite have kept much information from the masses. I find much wisdom in reading many of those books that are not a part of the bible.

We certainly have been inundated with the troll tramping mud across the porch. I am reminded of those obnoxious and incessant GEICO commercials, you know, “Can GEICO really save you 15% or more on your car insurance?” Then a parade of noted authorities cited, such as Charlie Daniels and Too Tall Jones, blah, blah, blah. Oh well, if I am interested enough in the TV show, I have no trouble tuning out the commercials. But since we have been subjected to some trips down Fantasy Lane, here’s a different one for you.

I woke up at 4:00AM to go to the bathroom and came up with a dandy solution to our problems with North Korea and Iran’s nuclear ambitions to join the club of ‘Super Powers’. Before I went back to sleep, I made a mental note to think about it the next day. You have to take the long view of matters like this. Instead of calling North Korea and Iran names, (‘Axis of Evil’?), doing a lot of muscle flexing and sabre rattling, here’s my brilliant idea.

Presidents Obama and Russia’s Medvedev signed an agreement to reduce the numbers of nuclear arsenals, hoping other countries would follow suit. In the spirit of bi-partisanship, perhaps President Obama could send Sarah Palin as a special envoy to North Korea. I understand that Kim-What’s-His-Name is a huge Elvis fan and apparently very much likes Cognac. Sarah could take lots of Elvis memorabilia and a few cases of Cognac, (enlist aid from France.) That should butter him up. There would be plenty of photo-ops for both of them. Lots of attention and mutual ego stroking.

Then Sarah could tell Kim that we have negotiated with the Russians to downsize our nuclear arsenal. Therefore, we will GIVE him some of our leftovers – no strings attached. We aren’t using them anyway. That way he wouldn’t have to develop any more of his own and he could start feeding his people.

Of course, an agreement would have to be drawn up, approved by congress and signed by the president, so Sarah would have to return to North Korea with a battalion of diplomats and lawyers. Her only duties would be to entertain Kim with tales about Alaska, wolf shooting from a helicopter and wait around for the agreement. She might even be able to convince him that Prester John made it all the way to North Korea and that Kim is really an evangelical Christian after all and didn’t even know it. She could take her whole clan with her and have lots of leisurely tours of Southeast Asia in the interim. The kids would not be in school but at least they could be learning something about geography and the cultures of other peoples. That should take a couple of years or so.

Then we would have to run it by Russia, NATO and the UN. Another bunch of years each while those agreements are being drawn up and approved. In the meantime, Sarah is running back and forth to visit with Kim, bringing lots more Elvis stuff and a Boeing 747 full of French Cognac cases each time. Plenty of minor predicaments would turn up such as, our nuclear bombs are not compatible with their launch vehicles; how to transport them to North Korea by FedEx or UPS negotiated contracts, etc., etc., etc. (The U. S. mail is in big financial trouble, so it’s doubtful if we could mail the bombs to him. Too big for flat rate boxes anyway. And no Saturday deliveries.) Now, all of this would be done on the taxpayer’s dime, but that’s still much cheaper than war and continuing the arms race ad infinitum, to say nothing of death and destruction. I really doubt if even Sarah could run up a bill of a trillion here and a trillion there.

This could be drawn out for YEARS. Both Sarah and Kim could die of old age (along with the rest of us) before this ‘stall’ ever gets off the ground. Sarah could even enlist the help of some Republicans since they are past masters at non sequiturs and foot-dragging. Oops! What if Sarah quit mid-negotiating session? Major faux pas! Well, maybe not. Obama or whoever is president, YEARS from now, could send in someone like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity to rescue of the whole operation.

It wouldn’t work with Iran though. Sarah would balk at having to wear a chador or burka and head covering. Besides, I don’t know if Bloomingdale’s carries a designer line of Middle Eastern traditional attire. (I have always thought that headscarves were a great idea though, when it’s cold, windy or you’re having a bad hair day.)

Maybe Obama could send Glen Beck to negotiate with Ahmadinejad. They have much in common. They seem to think alike. They could cry together.

So what would be happening here in the U.S. all this time? After who knows how many years, Americans could have gotten used to a radical new conservative liberal concept called, are you ready for this: PEACE.

But the majority of the population opposed it. Using your own logic, isn’t that a bad thing that so many bribes were made to pass it, that rules were broken, that the terms weren’t disclosed until after it was passed, and so on? Oh, but you liked it so that’s OK. Very consistent.

On the other hand, I’m merely out in the marketplace of ideas sharing the facts and logic of the pro-life position. I’m using a highly democratic and legal means.

“You haven’t succeeded in convincing the majority of the American people to do it your way. So you’re willing to set aside democracy to get your way by any means necessary, because, damn it, you’re right.”

FYI — the more specific the questions, the more surveys show that people lean pro-life. 80% oppose partial birth abortions. A large number oppose them after the first trimester. Yet pro-legalized abortionists fight all restrictions, including parental notifications.

I have no issue with birth control being legal. I do caution people to know what the side effects are, because they are often downplayed, and whether the methods are barrier or potential abortifacients (e.g., IUDs). Being fully educated is the key.

We probably agree on the immorality of many things. However it’s not a legal argument.

Many people believe birth control is immoral – I suspect you do, given your definition of when life begins. Many people feel it’s immoral for a wife to disobey her husband. Many people believe interracial dating and marriage is immoral. Many people believe sex before marriage is immoral. Many people believe homosexuality is immoral. Many people believe caffeine, cigarettes, alcohol and doctors are immoral.

All of these things are legal. Shall we pass laws to put all of these beliefs under criminal penalties? No, that’s not how it works. We vote for people who best represent our positions. The majority of the representatives vote to pass the laws. Elections come around again & we tweak the results or change them altogether.

You haven’t succeeded in convincing the majority of the American people to do it your way. So you’re willing to set aside democracy to get your way by any means necessary, because, damn it, you’re right. If that’s not theocratic thinking, I don’t know what is.

Abortion is legal. Murder, theft and rape aren’t. And ‘moral’ as a legal term carries about as much weight as ‘lite’. Or ‘chocolatey’.

WWGKD?
Scroll baby scroll. My scrolling finger is numb,
REmember the old couple whom I told you about>
The husband passed away last night.
His wife has been told but she didn’t comprehend anythng. Her Alzheimers is so advanced.

Jesus commands YOU to repent and believe. Then once you realize the enormity of what He did for you by paying for your sins, you’ll want to follow him and give your time and money generously. That’s how this Christian thingy works. We don’t ask the gov’t to take your money and give it away and then credit it to our account.

Your Jesus is telling my college student friend: DIE SUCKER!!! I have my priorities!! Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – got to beat up those Muslims. (Iraq was started with lies) A trillion spent so far – more to come.

Jesus also wants to give Billionaire Welfare to the top 1%.

Pass the plate.

A woman and her doctor will make the decisions about a woman’s body. Abortion will be an option.

I’m going right out to the DMV today to demand that they change my birthdate to 9 months before I was born, because I was a human being then. @@

Did you magically appear at birth? Where were you 10 minutes before you were born? Would it have made a difference if someone had stuck a sharp object in your skull and sucked your brains out while you were 90% delivered?

If the fetus is a person, Neil, it can move out of the womb and get a job and a cute apartment.

I’m just going with science here. I’m too pro-science to be pro-choice.

Using your logic, you could kill kids until they are 18.

At the time that the vast majority of abortions occur, we aren’t even talking about a fetus but an embryo.

I’m going right out to the DMV today to demand that they change my birthdate to 9 months before I was born, because I was a human being then. @@

If the fetus is a person, Neil, it can move out of the womb and get a job and a cute apartment.

At the time that the vast majority of abortions occur, we aren’t even talking about a fetus but an embryo. You couldn’t see the products of conception without a high powered microscope and an advanced degree in biology.

BTW, your photos of illegal abortions in other countries? They have nothing to do with the situation here.

Are you vegan, Neil? After all, if you are so pro-life, that must be the case …

I believe in helping others with health care. I’ve been on three mission trips to Kenya to help a hospital there and have made many donations. That’s one example of many.

Please share with us how much you have generously donated over the years to help others with their health care. Or do you just like to have the gov’t take other people’s money to “give” away on your behalf? Seems kinda hypocritical of you if you haven’t been donating all along.

You keep bringing up rape, but that is less than 1% of the cases anyway. And I’m still waiting for you to say whether you approve of death for the rapists. After all, your first impulse is to kill the innocent child.

When will Obama’s plan kick in? Why didn’t you help him and buy his insurance? Maybe he, like many others, made a CHOICE to save money and not buy insurance. You want the government to force peopl to have it.

And what does that have to do with abortion, other than that you can’t stop embarrassing yourself with silly non sequitors?

Neil wrote: “Roe v. Wade enabled women to participate in the social, financial and political life of this country.” Gloria Feldt — President of Planned Parenthood

So women can’t participate in society, finance or politics without abortion?

Neil, I have no doubt that you would love to see women forced to bear pregnancies, wanted or unwanted, whether they resulted from rape or incest, etc.

The point that Steinem was making is that men had the ability to participate fully regardless of whether they had children. Their lives and health are not endangered by gestation, just for a start. The ability to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, for whatever reason, gives a woman the same freedom as a man.

Gosh, I bet that chaps your hide. You obviously believe that women should be kept at home with the young’uns, barefood and chained to the stove. Your patriarchal condescension has been noted.

BTW, you might want to take a gander at all of the verses in Kings where your god demands that womens’ pregnant wombs be ripped open and the fetii dashed upon the ground.

Maybe not. But you never know who is reading and learning. And while you all are too proud to admit it, I’m sure some are troubled by the scientific facts and the exposure of the flawed pro-abortion reasoning. Hopefully that will chip away at you over time. I’m fine either way.

And I delight that middle ground people will see how one little pro-lifer can annihilate so much bad pro-abortion reasoning so easily, and how bereft you are of arguments. Observers can see that the swearing and name calling is evidence of a lack of arguments.

Neil: You bore the H*ll out of me and I would say about 98% of the rest of us here. I stopped reading your rants long ago. You will not find converts here. Abortion is LEGAL and we will fight to the death to keep it so.
Deal and move on, son. You are a bully and a blow heart
I suggest we all *WWGKD*

So you think the pro-life movement is all about making babies to fight wars?

Wow, this thread has been golden. I know that hard core pro-legalized-abortionists rarely change — though it is possible, such as with the Planned Parenthood Director who resigned after watching an ultrasound of an abortion — but I relish the thought of middle ground people reading this thread.

Oh Helen, you blew my mind with this DIRECTLY ON TARGET, BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN AND BLUNT ARTICLE. You are absolutely terrific! Abortion really IS NOT a political issue. The Repugnants brought it into politics to give them an edge [they thought] because of their ‘family values’ which of course the rest of their values seem to have disappeared with all the AFFAIRS going on over on C Street. Don’t get me wrong, I know the Democrats have their share of affairs as well, but they DID NOT bring their ‘family values’ to DC to use as a wedge on elections.

Being as I’m 66 y/o and had a hysterectomy while in my early 20s for severe medical problems, I still want to know that abortion is available to ALL WOMEN [despite them having to spend their own money for it]. Stupak just wanted to make a name for himself by posturing [most of us didn’t know his name prior to his rant], however, I don’t believe your description of him was what he was seeking, even though it fits him perfectly]. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I know another young man. He was engaged.
He joined the army. He went to Iraq. (That was was started with lies. Cost 1 Trillion so far. Realistically, expect it to cost 3 Trillion or more.)

The soldier and his fiance set the date. He got hit with a road side bomb. He came home. The only part of his body that worked was his brain. He was given the choice of living with not moving his arms, legs, or mouth and living on tubes or passing on.

Surrounded by family and his fiance: He chose to pass on and the tubes were turned off.

A war started with lies.

Our local high school held a tribute to him. Another Hero!
We need all the poor babies we can get to fight the wars of the future.

“This man should tell women how to live their lives and what can and can’t happen to their bodies.”

For the hundredth time or so, you have ignored the body of the human being getting destroyed via abortion. How convenient for you. Who stands up for the unborn? Someone is telling them they can’t live life at all.

And when Bill Clinton cheats on his wife in the White House with what by any reasonable definition is a position of great authority over the female, he is propped up by NOW? Yet they (rightfully) excoriated other men who would have sex with their employees? Why the double standard?

Why don’t feminists oppose gender selection abortions, virtually all of which destroy females for the sole reason that they are female?

Yeah, because of a few hypocrites it is totally OK to crush and dismember innocent human beings, or do whatever else you like to do.

You can totally trust a pro-abort like Obama, because he promised to set a new bipartisan tone (wait — it was the opposition to health care that was bipartisan), he promised you could read the bills online for 5 days, that he’d televise the debates, and so on. All lies.

I thought I knew a lot of terms, but I must admit I had never heard of the term “teabagger” until Liberals and the MSM started using it last year.

Apparently it is a homosexual act where one guy dips his testicles into another guy’s mouth a la a tea bag.

What this has to do with polite discourse or politics is beyond me. Seems like an infantile response from people who have neither reason or logic to back up their claims. I view it as a concession speech.

And to state the obvious, just because people oppose socialism and its many ills doesn’t mean they can’t avail themselves of services they pay for with their tax dollars, as well as funds spent on the common good. After all, the top 10% of earners pay 70% of taxes.

Neil – have you ever had an abortion? Is that how you know abortion procedures aren’t safe? Is that how you know that bearing a child to full term under duress MUST be better than enabling the woman to choose to have a abortion?

I know abortions are always unsafe for the unborn. Every “successful” abortion kills an innocent human being.

I also know from studying the matter that they are unsafe for the women. You seemed to agree with that as well, so I’m not sure what your objection is.

Neil – have you ever had an abortion? Is that how you know abortion procedures aren’t safe? Is that how you know that bearing a child to full term under duress MUST be better than enabling the woman to choose to have a abortion?

Furthermore, abortion was never seen as a method of birth control, contrary to the scare literature of the xtreme rightwing of this country.

It is most definitely used as birth control. That is one of the many anti-women components. The burden is on the women to have an abortion if other methods fail (or aren’t used).

And your objections are with the abortion lobby, who claim abortions are safe. I know they aren’t safe — for the mother or the child. I was just pointing out that IF they were as safe as claimed then they’d be cost effective birth control. Glad we agree that they aren’t safe and never will be.

that which is moral is not, by nature, necessarily legal, and that which is immoral, by nature, is not necessarily illegal.

Agreed. But killing innocent human beings has typically been considered one of those immoral things deemed to be illegal. Even the Hippocratic Oath — which was non-religious — was explicitly pro-life until the abortion lobby got it changed.

IMO, that’s exactly what those parents did to her and her child.

I won’t pretend to read the minds of the parents, but you go ahead. Seems to me it is possible that they disagree with killing innocent human beings.

Why not give the child up for adoption? Why not help him now?

If the child would be better off dead, why not kill him now? You could do it painlessly. If it was morally acceptable or even a moral good in the womb, why not outside the womb?

Neil your arguments regarding Abortion are so. . . redundant. For instance, you “claim” that “If it isn’t immoral and is as safe as Planned Parenthood & Co. claim it is, then it would be a cost-effective method of birth control.” The truth is though thanks to your anti-choice pals, abortion providers in this country are few and far between, and those who do provide LEGAL abortions are threatened on a daily basis. Furthermore, abortion was never seen as a method of birth control, contrary to the scare literature of the xtreme rightwing of this country. First of all, a woman’s body simply couldn’t sustain that. Any woman who has ever had a cone biopsy has undergone a D&C. And MDs who perform cone biopsies will tell their patients that this procedure can only be performed so many time before the uterine lining becomes like tissue paper – and blood begins to seep into the peritoneal cavity causing infection, organ shut down, etc. That is why a woman prone to cervical cysts will eventually undergo partial or full hysterectomy and sometimes cervical reconstruction. Let me put it this way – if every time you stuck your head up your ass and it had to be removed surgically, you’d need to have your ass reconstructed.
So try another tactic bubba. Or at least study on on the very basics of reproductive health/medicine before you start tooting Gabriel’s horn for him.

Neil I think you have done a superb job defending the innocent pre-born from the closed-minded people who have responded to your logical arguments with name calling. I pray that their eyes will be opened to the truth found in the person of Jesus Christ who is the only truth in this world. May God bless you my brother.

JJ< sounds more like the woman was required to bear the child as a punishment for her "oops" moment rather than because her parents were anti-choice. It's so easy to hide behind some sanctimonious curtain of self-righteousness and use your "morality" to punish someone who moved outside your comfort zone. IMO, that's exactly what those parents did to her and her child.

Neil – that which is moral is not, by nature, necessarily legal, and that which is immoral, by nature, is not necessarily illegal. Legality is a socio-political construct designed for the better management of society and to gain the common good. Morality, on the other hand, is that which the individual perceives to be good, just, and righteous. That our societies’ laws happen to reflect a Judeo-Christian moral basis merely points out the acceptance by society that the constructs of those particular theologies may be those which achieve a common good. Murder is illegal – not because God said thou shall not kill, but because society said it is illegal. And it all revolves around the common good. Not the common god.

A woman is the one who must make a most personal decision based on discussions between she and her doctor.

Neither the government nor a man yelling profanities and hate at her should have any part in whether a woman chooses an abortion. Abortion should be an option and I feel it would not be used very often.

2. It is immoral to kill innocent human beings for 99% of the reasons given for abortions (pro-lifers are supportive of abortions to save the life of the mother, as it is consistent with the pro-life ethic).

3. Therefore, abortions are immoral.

No theocracy there. Just because my religious views align with that doesn’t mean I can’t share my views in the public square — unless you will insist that I have to be pro-stealing, pro-murder, etc. because my religion opposes those things.

jsri, I would have to disagree with you that the thugs always win. They appear to be winning here because people continue to engage them.

For example, one of them said yesterday that he was leaving, but he kept reading the comments because he keeps coming back. In this kind of environment (message boards, blogs, etc.) it’s easy to continue thuggish behavior because there is no penalty for doing so, e.g., ostracism by the group. This person tried to engage me after I commented (and I suspect will try to do so again after this post) but I ignored him. Others need to do the same. When he stops getting attention, he’ll eventually go away.

Your soccer player situation was different, but still doable. The coach should have either been told (by the other parents) that he needed to get rid of the miscreants for the sake of the team, or the other parents should have just taken their sons off the team. Yes, the boys wouldn’t have had the soccer practice, but it doesn’t sound as if it was really a beneficial season for them anyway.

The point is that people have to act in unison or the thugs will continue to choose their targets and continue to engage. If you don’t react to their thuggery, they generally get tired and leave.

Ok, I’ve been pretty much staying out of the discussion because I’m neither a Christian nor a Jew. I know many people who post here are part of this tradition and I’m not trying to offend anybody, (barring the people who will be offended by my existence – can’t help that and don’t care, either).

Answering a constitutional/legal argument with a religious view is beside the point. Go ahead and quote the Bible, up to and including the Nag Hammadi scrolls, the Torah and Talmud, the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, Gilgamesh or the world according to Star Trek, Firefly or J.R.R. Tolkien – it doesn’t matter. Or rather, it does matter greatly, but only to the fans and churches in question. We’re talking about laws here.

I am pro-life. I am pro-the life of the woman. When I look at the materials from the anti-choice crowd, they keep talking about the innocent lives of the babies (applied from everything from a fertilized egg on out) and I keep wanting them to tell me when the woman got guilty. Why is she valued less?

Molly Ivins quoted a old man at a rally; “You have a choice! Keep your legs together!”. So that’s it? She had sex? If it were only that simple. Birth control fails, rape and incest happen, women and fetuses acquire conditions making birth incompatible with life.

The anti crowd talks about abortion as if it required less thought, time and trouble than an oil change. (Ten minutes? Really?) The evil floozies, waltzing in and out of clinics on a lark, hardly even inconvenienced before they can get back to their wanton ways. No one is ever beside themselves with grief, no one is ever in a horrible position (Heck, nobody is ever even married). Besides, we all know a Real Woman would die giving birth and be happy for it. Never mind who’s going to care for the child now.

I would be ecstatic if abortions were never performed because they weren’t necessary. The more sex ed and family planning resources, the better, I say. But even that won’t take care of 100% of the cases. And the ‘wait til marriage’ crowd is delusional – check the marriage vs birth statistics through the centuries, including the Puritans. It’s never been a reality.

I don’t care what you think your God thinks, and you can’t make me care, legally or in any other way. This isn’t a theocracy. You may want to be the Ayatollah or the Christian Taliban, but you can’t. Argue the law, or let it alone.

But more and more, that role has been taken on by fewer and fewer regulars as the thugs get bolder and bolder.

Perhaps you could point which of my comments qualify as thuggery and contrast them with your winsome, fact-filled comment?

an embryo is a female body part until it can survive on it’s own, without the femle’s body.

NOT TAKE CARE OF ITSELF….

Well, you keep saying that, but do you have any authoritative scientific literature to back it up? If a woman is pregnant does she have 4 arms and legs? Does she have a penis if she is carrying a male? No, she is carrying a distinct human being with unique DNA.

Also, the “can’t take care of itself” argument would justify infanticide as well, and I doubt you would support that.

The woman and doctor should be the two people who make a decision regarding their bodies

How about the body of the unborn? Why doesn’t she get a say in the matter? How about if her doctor advises against having her killed?

Or how about 10+ years of appeals for her, just like convicted murderers get?

About 35 years ago when our son was in high school, he played on the school’s hockey team. In the off season he joined a league made up mostly of kids who played on a variety of HS teams but wanted to stay in shape while out of school. The team won more than they lost but the coach was dissatisfied. He wanted to win all the time. So he recruited a couple players who had been benched by their HS teams for unsportsman like conduct on the ice. On player who called himself Ace was a total thug and was never happy unless he could bloody an opponent’s face somehow. He was also an expert at hooking, slashing, butt ending, spearing and cross checking. The rest of the players called him Ace but spelled it Ass. I often wondered what motivated him to be so nasty but my question was quickly answered when I saw his mother in action.

Slovenly people are often referred to as trailer trash and she fit the bill. She always had a few bottles of beer stashed away inside her parka at games and made no bones about swilling them down, even there was a prohibition against alcohol consumption at the rink. She had a mouth that would disgrace a drunken sailor but it was the hubcap and metal mixing spoon that were most offensive. Every time her son bloodied an opponent’s face, (he also did it during team scrimmages) she would break out the hubcap and pound it with the spoon until everyone’s ears in the rink were ringing in protest.

Gradually, during the team’s season, other parents drifted away until the only ones left in the stands were Ace’s mother and a few relatives, all from the same trailer park. The league finally barred the team a couple years later for unsportsmanlike play but couldn’t regain its equilibrium and went out of existence a year after that.

This was all brought to mind following the last few days of reading H&M’s most recent blog and reading the mindless rants by the collection of thugs that have taken it over. When I first came on board a couple years ago, most of the commenters here were Helen’s biggest boosters and would take on the occasional malcontent. But more and more, that role has been taken on by fewer and fewer regulars as the thugs get bolder and bolder.

I guess the moral to the whole story is that the cheap thugs always get their way.

Neil:
You come riding in to this blog high on your horse, ready to sling your arrows at the “sinners” who dare to justify abortion. You bring your bible and you thump it very well – kudos.
I will tell you this – YOUR God, does not equate to every one’s God. You see, MY God is the God of forgiveness and justice, of feeding the hungry and healing the wounded. He/She is the God of peace and does NOT judge. God gave us free will, He/She gave us our minds to think with, our hearts to feel with and our hands to work with. Right and wrong are subjective. Some people use those hands to beat the child once it is born, others to help save the poor, hungry children. Both are forgiven in God’s eyes. In our world it is wrong to kill your daughter because she spoke to a male. In some people’s world this is the Right way to deal with the matter. Do we agree NO! are we going to change their minds – maybe, some, but not all. No one has EVER suggested killing a child once it is born and breathing on it’s own! OK. Abortion is and has ALWAYS been a part of the womens world, since before records began. The process was handed down from one healer to another. Why, because it has always been needed. Would education help, of course, will it make it stop – NO. Only in a perfect world would abortion be uneccessary. This is in no way a perfect world. Because you have a bible does not make you right, it only makes you single minded. Perhaps if you put down the book and looked outside your very small world, you would see some other views and think about them. My God loves me for who I am. Do not judge, lest ye be judged! How about you work hard to help the poor and hungry children that have already been born and leave the rest to the individual and their God. He/She can handle it, I promise!

.. My heart beats we can hear it …….it is “alive”…… If you pluck out my heart and lay it on a table it will still beat for a second or two… but it’s not a person, or “a life”…… without the support of the REST of all my organs it doesn’t live on it’s own and is not a “life”.

Lori it’s time to grow up. Do you really think a newborn baby can live on its own without another person caring for it? Try having a baby and then leaving it alone for several days. You would end up with the same result as an abortion, dead baby.

Vasectomy and tubal ligation !! Let’s encourage this for people who want to avoid pregnancies and parenthood. These voluntary procedures should be covered by insurance. Frankly, I think they should be mandatory for people who now depend on government (tax-payers) to provide for the children they already have !

Infants are dependent on their mothers, but we don’t use that dependency to rationalize their destruction. In fact, we tend to give more protection to the weak and dependent in every are other than abortion.

Last I looked the Right was having a big hissy fit about the big bad government taking over their life by extending health insurance to all. They are screaming at the top of their lungs that the government should stay OUT of their doctor patient (personal) decisions.

Sigh. Once again, you ignore that another human being gets killed via abortion. And of course, you made up the issue: It isn’t about patient decisions, it is about forced insurance requirements, the end goal of single payer, the taxpayer-funded abortions, and more.

By advocating for abortions to be funded by the taxpayer, they’ve effectively made it everyone’s issue; man or woman, liberal or conservative. So while the procedure itself may be a private matter, I have every right to oppose helping pay for it.

Excellent point, PJ. They are requiring that pro-lifers pay for abortions. That is no longer pro-choice, it is pro-abortion.

And fooey on any talking head who equates PARTICIPATION in the social, financial, and political life of this country with Roe v Wade.

I’m glad we agree that the President of Planned Parenthood was way off base.

Laws in themselves do not heal or transform a society.

No one claimed that making abortion illegal will solve the problem completely. But it will reduce them. Laws do reflect what a society views as right and wrong. And they help protect the innocent!

Neil, you must be reading that conservative bible that conservapedia is publishing, since they claim the bible has a liberal slant

No, I just read the Bible. And as I pointed out and as the verse you pasted showed, Jesus didn’t teach to never judge, He said not to judge hypocritically — which, ironically, is what you are doing right now. Think about it: You are judging me for judging. If that isn’t hypocrisy I don’t know what is. Work on that ;-).

Oh, and the red letters don’t have more weight than anything else. Jesus is God, and the Bible is the word of God. It all turned out just like He wanted it to.

I have been over the bill and I cannot find where this is part of it. Please note the page/section. I see where the Hyde amendment still takes precedent, though 17 states provide funds to low income citizens for abortions.

Of course they aren’t that explicit about it. You are either disingenuous or not familiar with the issue. I addressed the way abortion is in the bill here — http://tinyurl.com/ygt9v9d . You can also see by the pro-aborts reactions. Planned Parenthood insists that the EO is symbolic, and they are the ones that stand to profit.

And you knew the Hyde Amendment has to be renewed and that they have no plans to renew it, right?

But here’s the important question: Do you object to taxpayer-funded abortions?

And by education, I mean real education, not the lies that some so-called pregnancy crisis centers tell to some women like an abortion will cause you to have breast cancer or other ills. I’m not implying that the crisis center that he purports does these things but there are quite a lot of them that do.

CareNet does not tell them that. I can’t speak for all clinics, but I don’t know any that do.

Are you equally concerned that Planned Parenthood hides statutory rape and has lied to women about the stage of development of their unborn children?

“And by education, I mean real education, not the lies that some so-called pregnancy crisis centers tell to some women like an abortion will cause you to have breast cancer or other ills. I’m not implying that the crisis center that he purports does these things but there are quite a lot of them that do.”

First, cards on the table: I’m a white male conservative, biblically fundamental, Christian (though unfortunately not skinny, to go back to a generalization made from the start:)) and pro-life. I know (from the tone of many posts) this makes me persona non grata here, but I figured I’d attempt rational discourse anyway.

None of this means I am against a woman’s right to choose. It means that I feel that the choice that involves killing the unborn baby shouldn’t be a “choice” on the table, regardless of gender implications some would attach to it.

I feel the need to emphasize this distinction, because I think political buzzwords and argument framing get in the way of fact on topics such as these. Pro-life and anti-abortion both fit fine (you can even call me a wacky fundamentalist!).

Introductions out of the way, on to my comparably brief point…

I have never come across crisis pregnancy centers that make up diseases or lies to women to convince them not to abort, but it would not surprise me that they exist.

Unfortunately, there are far more abortion clinics that misinform women (particularly young ones) in order to profit from the procedure. Planned Parenthood has been caught numerous times giving false information and not only allowing, but pressuring underage and under-informed girls/young women to have abortions and, worse still, providing very little psychological support afterward.

The difference should be clear. One is designed to help the woman through her pregnancy and motherhood. The other has become profitable through the “business” of abortions. You seem to imply that there’s a conflict of interest with these pregnancy centers, yet the real conflict lies with the group profiteering off of women in a vulnerable state.

You are right though, education and reduction of unwanted pregnancies would go a long way to reducing abortions. I fail to see how this is an argument against any of Neil’s earlier points unless you are implying crisis pregnancy centers aren’t educating?

Thanks and God bless,

-P

Oh, and for the general record in regards to the blog itself. Many of us who are outspokenly opposed to the public funding of abortions can’t just “hush up” and move on. It wasn’t pro-lifers who made this a public issue. It was abortion advocates.

By advocating for abortions to be funded by the taxpayer, they’ve effectively made it everyone’s issue; man or woman, liberal or conservative. So while the procedure itself may be a private matter, I have every right to oppose helping pay for it.

Life begins when the embryo can live without the female’s body. Until then it is the woman’s body– part and therefore her healthcare decision.

Last I looked the Right was having a big hissy fit about the big bad government taking over their life by extending health insurance to all. They are screaming at the top of their lungs that the government should stay OUT of their doctor patient (personal) decisions.

LibertyLover, good to “see” you and thanks for the compliment. I am here in AZ trying to build swimming pools. So far this has been a better year than last year was. I am optomistic that the economy here will improve, but not too sure about the political climate. We have some backwards thinkers in this neck of the woods.

Poolman…@ 10:31 — this is a reasoned response to which Neil has no response as he has none to this same point that I made earlier. Reducing the number of unintended pregnancies is the answer and education is the key.

And by education, I mean real education, not the lies that some so-called pregnancy crisis centers tell to some women like an abortion will cause you to have breast cancer or other ills. I’m not implying that the crisis center that he purports does these things but there are quite a lot of them that do.

(And I believe we live in the same state if memory serves. Good to see you on the threads from time to time… I find your comments very enlightening.)

Oh my goodness Poolman, your story of your grandsons gave me such a chuckle. It reminded me of when my twins (now 22) were little guys and first discovered themselves! My goodness you’d think their penis was the greatest toy ever invented. *chuckles*

“Thanks to President Obama, you’ll have taxpayer-funded abortions — another goal the Left has been dying for.” – Neil

I have been over the bill and I cannot find where this is part of it. Please note the page/section. I see where the Hyde amendment still takes precedent, though 17 states provide funds to low income citizens for abortions.

I have been on both sides of this abortion issue. If you want to reduce abortions, start teaching sex education as soon as kids start talking. My 7 year old and 4 year old grandsons are very interested in their own penises and have a fondness for women’s breasts. My generations answer is to tell them to shut up and not talk about it. That hasn’t worked, or we would not be having this debate today.

We need to be much more forthcoming with accurate information to satisfy the natural questions that arise from our youth. Sex is all over the TV, internet, billboards, and magazines. We need to talk about it to our kids. That is our best way to curtail unwanted pregnancies.

As for the medical reasons to abort, they will still be there. But if we can get away from abortion as a form of birth control, we will be winning this battle for all sides.

“Great logic. Let’s make murder and stealing legal, too, since making them illegal didn’t stop them.”

I’m going to assume you are being sarcastic here. The drug issue proves how making something illegal doesn’t fix the problem and you have offered no fixes for the unwanted pregnancy issue. Your answer is to make abortions illegal. Again. Making criminals of girls and doctors. Again. And right now our private and public prisons are full to more that capacity with “criminals” because we DID make drugs illegal. Even the ones God made and said were “good,” we call illegal. These addicts need help, not criminal records or imprisonment. I’m sorry you couldn’t see the logic in my example.

Look at alcohol. It was illegal, then was made legal. The problem itself doesn’t go away, just how we deal with it does. Laws in themselves do not heal or transform a society.

Neil, you must be reading that conservative bible that conservapedia is publishing, since they claim the bible has a liberal slant. Mine says, in red letters no less, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:1-5)

I’ve met countless women in crisis pregnancies. Their situations are certainly complicated, which I why I support the ministries to help them: Economic, education, pressure from the father / grandparents of the child, etc.

But the moral equation is simple: Those reasons don’t adequately justify abortion.

——————————–
I give you points you with this simple personally honest answer
However I disagree that the moral equation is simple.
Stalemate.

And fooey on any talking head who equates PARTICIPATION in the social, financial, and political life of this country with Roe v Wade.
We ladies just upped to the plate and participated…
All Roe v Wade did was cut down the funerals we went to.

“Our Troll friend has his Insurance Stocks – bring on the profits, even if it is at the cost of our children.”

Uh, hate to burst your bubble, but the health care bill just sent billions of dollars of new business to the insurance companies. Do you seriously think they didn’t buy off the Dems to make sure they were the big winners?

Alaskapi, I’ve met countless women in crisis pregnancies. Their situations are certainly complicated, which I why I support the ministries to help them: Economic, education, pressure from the father / grandparents of the child, etc.

But the moral equation is simple: Those reasons don’t adequately justify abortion.

Neil-
I DIDN”T say anti-abortion folks didn’t care about the humanity of women…
But getting the feeling you would hear that no matter what I said…
I don’t eat herring so get it off the plate- including YOUR red one.
Where did that silly question about women proving they are equal to men by being willing to kill their unborn children come from?
It’s perfectly possible you care about the humanity of the women you counsel but the narrow definition of humanity coming through in your language is inadequate to the task of apprehending the moral dilemma women face… all of us face. it’s all way too tidy for you.

You’re a class act, Joe. Unfortunately many others do keep talking to me so I’m trying to be polite and answer their questions. I don’t want to be rude and leave them hanging. If they’d stop I’ll be glad to.

“Again, your thinking is so muddled it’s comical. You say “what have YOU done to make life for unwanted babies and their mothers easier?” The answer is clearly, the onus for that isn’t ON anyone who ISN’T trying to take the option of abortion away from her.”

Of course the onus is on you as well. Think about it: Unless you are insisting that she abort then you want her to have a choice. But if she chooses life and needs help, why are you abandoning her? Pretty heartless if you ask me.

Why are you all wasting time her calling pro-lifers names instead of getting out and adopting more kids?

Psuedo science?? How about showing me where one of these references is incorrect — http://tinyurl.com/yfje8lq . Just one would be great.

Now to whom do you think she’s referring here? But how much do you support educating and counceling young men to treat women’s bodies with respect and honor and to step up and take responsibility should an unwanted pregancy occur, and how shameful it is for him to twist her arm to have an abortion if she doesn’t want one?

I know who she was talking to. I counseled many guys who came into CareNet and did exactly as you suggested. Happy?

My God — the real God — is pro-life and says to protect the weak. Come visit a CareNet Pregnancy Center and get a tour. The women who come in gets lots of love and no judgment. And they get plenty of support, for free. If you really care about them — as you all insist you do — why not make a donation? How about investigating them before you criticize?

Jesus didn’t teach not to judge — He taught not to judge hypocritically. Unless you are accusing me of doing abortions while campaigning against them, your biblical analysis doesn’t apply here.

Neil – I see. You have in fact come here simply to pummel us with your psuedo science and your slanted fact, that I’m not even paying any kind of attention to anymore.

Very sad. As I said, I’m not totally against putting certain limits on abortion, or even making it illegal again, with certain concessions. But even if you had anything at all to say that I might agree with, your sanctimonious, self-righteous, patriarchal attitude has totally turned me off. And that’s exactly how you people had total control of the White House, both houses of Congress AND the Supreme Court and STILL couldn’t get Roe v. Wade overturned in any significant way. You still have said nothing to convince me you actually give a damn about women, or about these poor innocent unborn babies. You’re a bully and a gas bag, and that’s really about it. Not even you are listening to you anymore. You quote Susan B. Anthony, but the last bit of her quote, ” “But oh! Thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime!”” Now to whom do you think she’s referring here? But how much do you support educating and counceling young men to treat women’s bodies with respect and honor and to step up and take responsibility should an unwanted pregancy occur, and how shameful it is for him to twist her arm to have an abortion if she doesn’t want one?

Again, your thinking is so muddled it’s comical. You say “what have YOU done to make life for unwanted babies and their mothers easier?” The answer is clearly, the onus for that isn’t ON anyone who ISN’T trying to take the option of abortion away from her.

Eggs, fertilized or not, have the POTENTIAL to become chickens IF they are incubated.

People work really hard to justify abortions. And aside from disagreeing with every mainstream embryology textbook out there, you’re doing great.

The unborn are unique human beings at a particular stage of development: Human embyro, human fetus, human newborn, human toddler, human teen, etc. If you don’t rip off her limbs and crush her skull her chances for a long life are pretty good.

Abortion is never a matter of convenience, nor is the decision to have one or not to have one easy or taken lightly. It is however one that every woman should be allowed to make for herself.

When I was a young woman, fresh out of high school and excitedly looking forward to attending college in the fall, I found myself pregnant with my first child. I freely admit that I was young, in love, acted stupid and let my hormones get the better of me. I thought long and hard about it, and decided to keep the pregnancy. With that decision, my whole life was altered in ways it never would have been had I decided to abort.

My boyfriend ‘who loved me with all his heart and wanted to marry me’, dropped me like a hot potato.

My dreams of college went out the window.

Soon after I lost my job because the morning sickness was so bad I spent half my time throwing up.

I spent the next 2 ½ years on welfare. Most of that time trying to get back off. They don’t make it easy; they actually actively discourage it by financially punishing those that try. (Imagine the tax dollars that could be saved if they helped rather than hindered.)

Even though I worked 60-70 hours a week, I spent the next 17 years at or below the poverty level. (Of course it probably didn’t help that the first hubby turned out to be an alcoholic and drug addict-but that is another story)

Do I regret keeping the pregnancy? Yes and no.
While I love my son dearly, he has given me 28 years of happiness and joy. I am very proud of the man he has become and of all of his accomplishments. His perfect grade point average in an Ivy League University and Colleges, not to mention extreme musical abilities that earned him 2 tours throughout North America with his band. My life would have been vastly different had I made a different choice.

However, I made the choice I made. Not only did I suffer the consequences for that, so did that child and the children that followed. It is not just me that paid dearly the price of a moment of stupidity, followed by the choice of keeping a pregnancy going. It was every child that followed that paid as well.

So, yes, when I hear people who want to take that choice away from women I do get ticked off. That decision is nobody’s business but the woman involved.

Period.

Even in the hardest of times, I found a way to ‘give back’ to society with time, money and resources whenever possible. Now that times are better, I can give more and it is a joyous feeling.

So those that want to say I am ‘pro-death’ because I am pro-choice. I say why don’t you listen to your christian god and quit being so judgmental. Those that want to take away choice, I say back up and lay off. For you show yourselves to be heartless horrible people with no compassion or understanding for others in your self centered world. I pity the lot of you. How sad your little lives must be.

Thanks to President Obama, you’ll have taxpayer-funded abortions — another goal the Left has been dying for.

In fact, they wanted those so badly that they were willing to risk the whole health care bill over it. If they hadn’t opposed the Stupak Amendment they could have passed the bill months ago. “Lucky” for them (and unlucky for the unborn), they won with the worthless Executive Order which both sides know is meaningless. And Stupak & Co. picked up a lot of good bribes in the process. Lefty politics at its best.

Even if abortion was made illegal tomorrow, it would not solve the problem of unwanted pregnancies or even stop abortion.

Great logic. Let’s make murder and stealing legal, too, since making them illegal didn’t stop them.

And I didn’t redefine socialism and communism. Anyone trying to say that Acts 2 supports those doesn’t know the Bible or basic definitions of those words. The early Christians gave because they wanted to. Taxing your neighbors does not qualify.

This troll says he is leaving. He keeps saying we’re into name calling.Yuk

Jean, thanks for the science lesson, but I’ll go with these mainstream embryology textbooks instead of your sound bites.

“Human development begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoo developmentn) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.”

“Although life is a continuous process, fertilization (which, incidentally, is not a ‘moment’) is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new genetically distinct human organism is formed when the chromosomes of the male and female pronuclei blend in the oocyte.”

“Human embryos begin development following the fusion of definitive male and female gametes during fertilization… This moment of zygote formation may be taken as the beginning or zero time point of embryonic development.”

“It is the penetration of the ovum by a spermatozoan and resultant mingling of the nuclear material each brings to the union that constitues the culmination of the process of fertilization and marks the initiation of the life of a new individual.”

“Every time a sperm cell and ovum unite a new being is created which is alive and will continue to live unless its death is brought about by some specific condition.”

E.L. Potter and J.M. Craig, Pathology of the Fetus and the Infant, 3rd edition. Chicago: Year Book Medical Publishers, 1975. p. vii.
GENERAL AUDIENCE TEXTS ON EMBRYOLOGY / PRENATAL DEVELOPMENT

“Every baby begins life within the tiny globe of the mother’s egg… It is beautifully translucent and fragile and it encompasses the vital links in which life is carried from one generation to the next. Within this tiny sphere great events take place. When one of the father’s sperm cells, like the ones gathered here around the egg, succeeds in penetrating the egg and becomes united with it, a new life can begin.” – 13

“The two cells gradually and gracefully become one. This is the moment of conception, when an individual’s unique set of DNA is created, a human signature that never existed before and will never be repeated.”

C. Christopher Hook, M.D.
Oncologist, Mayo Clinic, Director of Ethics Education, Mayo Graduate School of Medicine
“Science has a very simple conception of man; as soon as he has been conceived, a man is a man.”

Jerome Lejeune, M.D., Ph.D.
In 1981, a United States Senate judiciary subcommittee received the following testimony from a collection of medical experts (Subcommittee on Separation of Powers to Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, Report, 97th Congress, 1st Session, 1981):

“It is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive…It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception.”

Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth
Harvard University Medical School
“I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life begins at the time of conception.”

Dr. Alfred M. Bongioanni
Professor of Pediatrics and Obstetrics, University of Pennsylvania
“After fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into being. [It] is no longer a matter of taste or opinion…it is plain experimental evidence. Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception.”

Dr. Jerome LeJeune
Professor of Genetics, University of Descartes
“By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception.”

Professor Hymie Gordon
Mayo Clinic
“The beginning of a single human life is from a biological point of view a simple and straightforward matter – the beginning is conception.”

Dr. Watson A. Bowes
University of Colorado Medical School
The official Senate report reached this conclusion:

“Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being – a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings.”

The American Medical Association (AMA) declared as far back as 1857 (referenced in the Roe. vs. Wade opinion) that “the independent and actual existence of the child before birth, as a living being” is a matter of objective science. They deplored the “popular ignorance…that the foetus is not alive till after the period of quickening.”

Why have all the teaching texts and so many medical experts come to this same conclusion? Because there are simple ways to measure whether something is alive and whether something is human. If Faye Wattleton is correct and everyone already knows that abortion kills a human being, they have come to that knowledge in spite of the information circulated by Planned Parenthood and the rest of the abortion-rights community. The abortion section of the Planned Parenthood website explains abortion this way:

“Abortion ends a pregnancy before birth.”

How’s that for thorough? Maybe they just assume that the method for ending the pregnancy is so obvious (killing the human being living in the womb) that it hardly bears mentioning. More likely, Planned Parenthood is simply accommodating the general ignorance which believes abortion to be the mere removal of potential human life, rather than the actual killing of existing human life.

Biologically speaking, every abortion at every point in the pregnancy ends the life of a genetically-distinct human being.

Easier, how many of the children languishing in foster care have you lifted your little finger to adopt today? Wouldn’t it be nice if instead of defending legalized abortion you were spending your energies working to get the children who are already here place in good homes? Just think about it!

“Neil – How about we have a talk about the humanity of women first?”

Akaskapi, I support Crisis Pregnancy Centers and other ministries which address the humanity of the women — including those being pressured to abort by the fathers & grandparents of the unborn. Saying we don’t care about the humanity of the women is a false argument and a red herring.

Why should women have to be willing to kill their unborn children to prove they are equal to men?Abortion is bad for women. Ask Susan B. Anthony:

Her newspaper viewed women having abortions as a symptom of a lack of equality, not the proof of equality.

She called abortion “child murder.”

“When a woman destroys the life of her unborn child, it is a sign that, by education or circumstances, she has been greatly wronged.”
“[Is the woman] guilty? Yes. No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; But oh! Thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime!”

Hey Cappy you proved who is the real closed minded person by wishing me dead. You showed yourself a true hater of those who disagree with you, as Jesus taught all murder really comes from the heart. I will pray for your repentance. Lord Jesus open Cappy’s eyes to the truth of who you are. Amen.

I was amused by our latest crop of conservatives coming here with the usual predictable and repetitive talking points to spread the Gospel of Neil, Roxanne de Luca et al. They must be surprised to learn that progressive liberals know about ‘copy and paste’ too. I am afraid they have all just flunked basic reproductive biology.

A short refresher course for them. An egg (ovum) and a sperm are LIVING cells, just as brain, heart muscle, bone and blood cells are. Every month past puberty, an ovum, (sometimes more), is released from the ovary. There are two ovaries. If the ovum is not fertilized, it dies and is sloughed off in the menstrual flow. In every ejaculation, millions of sperm are dispersed. Only one sperm can penetrate the ovum. The others die. So nature has provided an embarrassing superabundance of reproductive riches. Thus, one could say that human life begins LONG BEFORE CONCEPTION with the LIVING ovum and sperm.

(Each LIVING ovum and sperm contains one half of the DNA necessary for the future offspring. That was only discovered in 1956 by the scientists, Watson and Crick. I won’t go into the myriad kinks that can and do occur in the DNA of both ovum and sperm.)

So it can hardly be said that it is a scientific ‘fact’ that life begins at conception if the cells are already alive! Science has been able to harvest and unite an ovum and sperm in a ‘test tube’ to produce an embryo and freeze it for an indefinite period of time. However, without implantation in the uterus to protect it, and the placenta with the mother’s blood supply to nourish it, the embryo/fetus is not viable. Science has yet to devise a way to do that. Until it does, we will just have to limp along with the old fashioned ways of human reproduction.

However, I like to think we have come far enough since Biblical times to educate ourselves, both men and women, about sex and its consequences beyond the passions of the moment. Contraception is one answer but not the only one. Humankind is way, way too complex to boil down to a few sound bites on either TV or computer blogs.

Also, an ear of corn has hundreds of kernels, each with the POTENTIAL to become a corn stalk. Without soil, water and sunlight, none of them can flourish. Think about that every time you slather an ear of corn with butter and salt and munch on it.

Eggs, fertilized or not, have the POTENTIAL to become chickens IF they are incubated. That is until you fry‘em up for breakfast. Therefore, not only have you ‘killed’ a couple of cute little fuzzy-wuzzy baby chicks but you have compounded it by cannibalizing them! For shame!

Neil, how many of the children languishing in foster care have you lifted your little finger to adopt today? Wouldn’t it be nice if instead of picketing abortion clinics you were spending your energies working to get the children who are already here place in good homes? Just think about it!

Neil – How about we have a talk about the humanity of women first?
Women get pregnant for all kinds of reasons.
In our time of available birth control some of our arguments have changed but the reasons haven’t.
Some want someTHING to love that no one can take away from them, some want to hold a partner to themselves, some think a bad relationship/marraige will magically get fixed if a baby comes along, some are raped, some experience birth control failures, some get carried away one time, some buy the hooey some romantic gives them about GIVING their man a baby, some because that’s what you do when you get settled in marraige and adulthood, and many, many, many plan and work with their partners to bring a new treasured life into the world.
Given all the reasons women get pregnant, to decide that ALL women who have abortions or even think about it are ignoring questions of when life begins, when do we become human, and so on is horsepunky- yet it persists in certain circles.
It’s the same argument about whether a plane hit the Pentagon on 9/11 that ignores all the real live testimony of thousands of real live people who saw it happen.
The stories are as varied as the women who tell them- they cover the whole of human experience and thought.
You assume the full humanity of all unborn.
I’m an old granma, I’m not so sure.

Neither of us can lift the veil which covers both ends of our earthly lives to know for sure.
I am sure, as I wait for my second grandchild, that what you or I think doesn’t mean doodly squat .
I accept that many women make decisions I don’t agree with but I also accept that most do not do so lightly.
Having raised a son to abstain or take full responsibility for birth control himself until he was ready to be a parent was one of the toughest chores I ever took on. It’s one of the three things he believed old ma about , thank heavens.
When men respect the humanity of the unborn and their partners as much as we yammer at women to take on I think we will have crossed into a new and better way to be fully human.
Until then , it’s private and it’s not my business or yours.

Well Neil, I’ll pass on the invite. I poked around over there and there are a lot of red flags for me. That isn’t my ministry and I could spend much time down that road with no positive result. You seem to have it all figured out anyway. If you can redefine communism and innocent to meet your criteria, what’s the point. I don’t think you won any converts here, so hopefully you reaped some benefit for stirring the pot. God knows the heart.

One last note I must add. Even if abortion was made illegal tomorrow, it would not solve the problem of unwanted pregnancies or even stop abortion. It would go back to the way it was before it was made legal, with more deaths and criminal involvement. Look what this country has done for drugs and addicts since they were made illegal.

This points to the bigger issue we face today with our politics. Critics abound, but few are problem solvers. There is no follow-through plan with their actions. Just like the illegal war we started in Iraq – no occupation or exit strategy. Cowboys and crusaders, yeehaw!

Well, with Neil gone, I guess I shouldn’t hold my breath for answers to questions. I’ll check your links again. I just want to know where he gets this “innocent” notion from.

Also, Neil if you do show back up, you might want to read the book of Acts regarding Jim Wallis’ call for social justice. “All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.” (Acts 2:44-45) Sorry if that sounds like communism or socialism to you. It is certainly a far cry from capitalism.

Well Neil, looks like fiona64 and daMamma’s provided good links answering your questions. I’ll add these two from the OT when they were actually counting persons:

“Count the Levites by their families and clans. Count every male a month old or more.” (Numbers 3:15)

“All the male Levites a month old or more numbered 23,000.” (Numbers 26:62)

They did not even include the females when doing a head count. Women were treated like possessions, in some cases less valuable than livestock – even during the time of Jesus. That was one of the many injustices that Jesus came to upset. His teachings were considered revolutionary and very liberal. He addressed the Samaritan woman at the well and had a one-on-one conversation with her, revealing Himself as the Messiah. There are many instances throughout the gospels that show His approach in dealing with women was against the status quo. You ought to read those again with that perspective in mind. Quite revealing.

I used to be one of the sign carrying anti-abortion protesters in the late 80’s, when my church would organize a protest. Aside from the anger and division we caused, people were still getting abortions and we were not winning any souls. I have since decided that it is more of a political football, than a serious debate. I think all killing comes at a cost, from blowing up civilians to smashing ants. I cannot create life from nothing, like my Father can. The best I can do is bring things back to life if He wills it and it brings glory to Him. So, for me, I try not to kill or destroy anything. And I use prayer as my only weapon against those who do.

If we want to reduce the issues that sex causes or forces in this society, we must educate our children. Sex information and education should be taught early and thoroughly in our homes. In this modern world, we need to arm our kids with knowledge and early. Not discussing sex or expecting abstinence only programs to work has proved disasterous. Often the church has been a huge stumbling block in this area.

I noticed since I began writing that many have posted more stuff. This abortion issue really draws a line in the sand.

I’m going to take my leave, as I can see that dissenting opinions and fact/reason based comments put people on edge.

Feel free to visit my place if you like. We have a variety of commenters — Protestant / Catholic / atheist / agnostic / conservative / liberal / etc. and we all get along pretty well. No name calling, either.

That little girl did not deserve the torture which she suffered that summer.

Of course not. Wanna kill the rapists? I’d entertain that idea. But I don’t see what killing the unborn child helped.

Do you think that having the abortion un-did the trauma of the rape? Do some research and you’ll find that it probably compounded it. The rapists not only stole her innocence but they drove her to have her child destroyed.

Yet another pro-legalized abortion argument that ignores the human being whose life is at stake. Seriously, can you all come up with one pro-legalized abortion argument that doesn’t ignore the humanity of the unborn?
Nor mine.

Roxanne- LOL-you really practise this shock and awe power point presentation thingy don’t you?
Whether it’s a 10 minute PP visit or any other type of visit between a woman and her doctor, it’s private.

Every story is different, every reason is different .
Some reasons are poor, some are heartbreakers…
None of them are your business.
Nor mine.

Cheryle, I loved this from your “About me” section — “I lament the loss of good manners and cordial relationships. I believe that when we unjustly attack others-verbally, emotionally, or physically-we diminish ourselves.”

The girl was the prize after drinking during the summer. Her dad and buddies drank and then someone would be in bed with her after the drinking.
Then dad would be the second sex partner to finish off the job.

Poolman wrote: Neil even calls out Jim Wallis and Sojourners as a false prophet/religion. He has a rant regarding the biblical principle of social justice and how Glenn Beck is right in his criticism of it.

Sounds like Neil and Roxanne missed that part in the Bible where Jesus commanded his followers to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and comfort the afflicted (ill). You know, those yucky, liberal, social justice type thingies?

Your favorite Dem politicians are notorious cheapskates, giving other people’s money and not their own — http://tinyurl.com/yzautg2

Yes, Wallis is a false teacher. He defines the Gospel as “the redistribution of wealth in society.” That is not what the Bible defines as the gospel (see 1 Cor. 15 and more).

Giving and caring is great. I do it a lot, but I’m not here to flaunt that. I only mention it because you all act like we don’t do anything to help.

Wallis & Co. think it is biblical to ask Caesar to take from neighbor A by force (via taxes) to give to neighbor B — and they think the Liberals get the credit for the donations! If you can find that in the Bible please share the chapter and verse.

I’m glad you provided that link. Here’s an analysis showing how the pro-abortion view fails on several levels — http://tinyurl.com/ykslevk .

1. They get the text wrong. This is a pro-life passage, not a pro-legalized abortion passage. Their argument relies on a mistranslation. The real Hebrew word isn’t miscarriage. If Moses wanted to say “miscarriage” he could have used a much more specific word for that.

2. They ignore or rationalize away other Biblical texts that they don’t like, such as Leviticus 18:22 So why do they find Exodus 21 so authoritative? Oh, because they are trying to justify abortion.

3. They don’t even agree with the other teachings of Exodus 21, such as verses 23-25.
“But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”

They are almost exclusively anti-capital punishment. So why do they rationalize away the destruction of over a million innocent human beings per year in the U.S. based on a poor translation of a single word and then ignore the rest of the passage which is much more clear?

4. They ignore the endless pro-life passages in the Bible.

5. They ignore that there was still a penalty even if you ignore the mistranslation.

imaginista – scroll finger? that’s te finger you use toscroll past the trolls! mine has a callous on it from some of very prolific trolls.
I can’t for the life of me understand why they persist on coming here.
Guess it beats self flagellation.

People on one side of the issue think that terminating a pregnancy is an easy decision for women to make.

Some might think that but the pro-lifers I know don’t hold that view. They know the psychological factors around crisis pregnancies are very complex, which is why they are glad to help these women and children with their own time and money.

But the moral issue isn’t complex at all: You shouldn’t destroy innocent human beings for 99% of the reasons given for abortions.

Seriously, if other people can dictate what a woman can or cannot do with her uterus, what is she other than a slave?

Another bad sound bite. You make it sound like the gov’t got her pregnant. You ignore that another human being is destroyed in the process.

I didn’t answer the question about killing homeless people because it was silly and means nothing. It was the same as asking if its okay to chop down an oak tree in the park because the next door neighbor grows asparagus.

It isn’t silly, and you missed the point. The claim was made many times that one can’t protest immoral acts without owning the situation — i.e., don’t complain about abortions if you don’t adopt all the kids.

So just fit another moral issue in the equation and see how that logic sounds. How about if your neighbor beats his wife or kids? Can you complain without having to marry her and raise them to adulthood? Of course you can.

What have you done?

Donated tens of thousands of dollars, been on the board of a pregnancy center, taught fatherhood classes to the guys who come in, counseled the guys, etc.

You’re ridiculous, Neil. Your thining is twisted in conveluted circles. One could use logic and reason and proof on you all day and you would still cling to your prejudiced, close-minded, preconceived notions

You haven’t backed up any of your claims. You just resort to name calling.

For example, how does may claim that a new human being is created at conception qualify as being prejudiced or close-minded? When I want to know the scientific facts of the matter I go to mainstream texts. If you have some saying the unborn are not human beings then please share them.

ust like I said, like most “pro-lifers” they don’t really give a damn about the so-called “innocent sweet little babies” as most of them will be born in poverty. You are just in love with the sound of your own voice pontificating and moralizing.

Indeed. Yet you think we’re judgmental? Heh.

I’ve brought nothing but facts and reasons. No name calling. What do I get in return? Name calling and bumper sticker slogans.

And I noticed YOU ignored MY response to that, Neil. What’s the matter, did it make too much sense for you?

Your response made no sense. It just dodged the question. Saying, “You see, I didn’t create the homeless person, I did not make him homeless, so why should I take him into my home?” just proves my point. I didn’t create the new human being. She exists already in her mother’s womb.

Your point is that pro-lifers must help if they are to protest the crushing and dismembering of the unborn. But that fails three ways: 1. We do help, a lot, with our own time and money. 2. You can protest an immoral act without having to take ownership of it. 3. As a “pro-choicer” you approve of the poor having kids, so you are obliged to provide every bit of support that you expect us to.

A simple yes or no will suffice: If the gov’t decided to kill homeless people would it be moral to protest that even if you had no intention to house them all at your cost?

I’ve seen a lot of them, so IF you really want to know the truth, you’ll seek them out yourself.

Republicans will never make abortion illegal. They had both houses of Congress and the Presidency and didn’t do it–why? Without the abortion issue they wouldn’t get voters to support their big business agenda and tax cuts for the super-wealthy.
Seriously, if other people can dictate what a woman can or cannot do with her uterus, what is she other than a slave? And if she is a slave, why should she pay taxes? Women pay first-class taxes, so why should we put up with second-class status?
I think gun owners have more rights regarding their guns than women do with regard to their own internal organs.

“How about some documentation for that? And btw, you didn’t even come close to demonstrating that all pro-lifers call for the death of pro-choicers. ”

I don’t believe anyone here ever said ALL “pro-lifers” call for the death of ALL pro-choicers. I’m not going to waste my time going through youtube digging up all of Billo’s clips, but they are there. I’ve seen a lot of them, so IF you really want to know the truth, you’ll seek them out yourself. But since you’re a Kool Aid drinking republican, you don’t really want to know the truth. For a year Bill O’Reilly went on the air in front of millions and called Dr. Tiller “Tiller the Killer” and said “he must be stopped!!” And guess what? someone stopped him. And you and your ilk celebrate the man who killed him. I saw Bill O’Reilly with my own eyes go on tv and say “a loss of a human life is sad, but….think of all the unborn babies that will get to live now that he’s gone.” And that’s his idea of an apology for calling for this man’s assassination.

You’re ridiculous, Neil. Your thining is twisted in conveluted circles. One could use logic and reason and proof on you all day and you would still cling to your prejudiced, close-minded, preconceived notions. I really don’t know what you’re doing here. You don’t really want to see our side of it, and you sure as hell aren’t going to change any minds. Do you just enjoy hearing the sound of your own voice? Yeah, I thought as much. Just like I said, like most “pro-lifers” they don’t really give a damn about the so-called “innocent sweet little babies” as most of them will be born in poverty. You are just in love with the sound of your own voice pontificating and moralizing.

I knew when M & H put up this post that people would be here to call abortion murder. And the conversation devolves from there.

People on one side of the issue think that terminating a pregnancy is an easy decision for women to make. These people usually site religion as the reason they are against abortion… until they find themselves in a situation where they need one. Then it seems to be OK in their situation, but only for them.

No one likes terminating a pregnancy — except for maybe that one woman who recently came out with a book saying that she had been addicted to the procedure… but I guarantee that even pro-choice people find her appalling.

Most people can agree that preventing unintended pregnancies in the first place would be the way to also curtain the incidence of abortion. This involves increasing sexual education and the knowledge that we all require about the working of our body — biology. Unfortunately, this is science and too many people of a religious background tend to distrust science. Pity.

Because science and education and an open dialog about what causes pregnancy is the only way to prevent it, be it through the practice of abstinence or by practicing the religious use of contraception. Too many pregnancies are the result of inconsistent use of contraception. Or none at all. That too is a Pity.

As with most things, it is not as cut and dried as most people tend to make it. But denying women the ability to make decisions about their own lives and their own bodies as if they are too stupid to make decisions for themselves should never be an option in the United States ever again.

Neil;
I didn’t answer the question about killing homeless people because it was silly and means nothing. It was the same as asking if its okay to chop down an oak tree in the park because the next door neighbor grows asparagus.

As for what have I done to help? How about volunteer time, money and goods to soup kitchens, homeless shelters, food banks. Done the secret Santa thing, volunteered time to pediatrics at the local hospital. Also have babysat for free for a couple of single moms to take night classes and work during the day so they could better provide for their children. (all of those kids still call me ‘auntie’ and keep in touch) And that is just a start of what I have done to help where I can.

Poolman wrote: Neil even calls out Jim Wallis and Sojourners as a false prophet/religion. He has a rant regarding the biblical principle of social justice and how Glenn Beck is right in his criticism of it.

Sounds like Neil and Roxanne missed that part in the Bible where Jesus commanded his followers to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and comfort the afflicted (ill). You know, those yucky, liberal, social justice type thingies?

Patty wrote: Did you know, even as late as 1973, after our fifth child, ages, 17,16,15,11 and a few months old, would only do a sterilization on the woman if the husband signed the paper giving his consent?

They were still demanding spousal consent for tubal ligations in 1993. I know, because my husband had to sign the paperwork that he was aware I wanted the procedure and gave his permission.

IF one can qualify, but nothing after the cord is cut. Until the ANTI crowd can help for the next 18 years, they should sit down and shush.

Until one can walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, one shouldn’t be yapping on with the condemnation.

That is wrong on a couple levels. First, pregnancy centers help the women after the pregnancy. They have parenting classes, diapers, formula, clothes, life skills classes, post-abortion trauma classes and more.

They do much more as well, including paying taxes.

I noticed that you ignored my hypothetical about the homeless. So if the gov’t decides to kill the homeless could you protest that without having to house them?

Most importantly, unless you are insisting on abortion for poor folks, then as a pro-choicer you have the same obligation that you are putting on us. Think about it: You want women to have a choice. So if they choose life then you are obligated to help. So what have you done to help before and after the births?

The point I was trying to make was abortion that is not properly done canbe devasting. From the beginning of time, up until today, that has been unfortunately woman’s onle choice. FRom back alley abortionists, to the neighborhood wise woman, to a self induced abortion, a woman had no choice. Until more sex education is available, the men take more responsibility, we need to do what we can to help, not make women’s lives more difficult.

Thanks to all of you for your opinions on abortion.
Over the weekend I have thought much about it, called some relatives to confirm the long ago tale my grandmother, and decided to tell an abreviated version.

In the late 1800’s, my great grandfather lost a fortune due to drinking and possibly.
Therefore they loaded a wagon with what they hat left and m oved with 5 children under 5 to a remote area of southern Missouri. Great GRandmother told her husband she would never have another child as long as he kept up with his drinking. She became pregnant, he was off drinking, she attempted a self induced abortion, hemorrhaged to death with only my 10 year old grandmother to care for her and the four younger children.
Such horror stories are probably pretty common from those days.
It has colored my opinion of abortion very much.
Men whose lives are determined by their own selfish behavior with no thought as to how those babies will be cared for, fed, housed, clothed, deserve absolutely no say so in the matter. Needless to say, he never touched another drop in his life.

“It should be pretty obvious that waiting for sex until marriage and removing no-fault divorce (perhaps a system like that in NY would be helpful) would do a lot to ensure that mothers are not impoverished and children don’t suffer.”

I have to agree, not so much about the no-fault divorce, but about the no-premarital-sex part. If everyone waited till marriage, there would be far fewer unwanted babies to worry about. The problem is, how do you enforce that? Put a police officer in every bedroom? Make fornication illegal again? Most people enjoy having sex. and most people think it’s ridiculous to wait till marriage these days. I’m not happy with the direction the moral make up of the country has drifted to, but all we can do is teach the children within our authority as best we can.

I don’t believe in premarital sex for myself but I’m not fool enough to believe I can stop anyone else, or that I even have the right to try to stop anyone else, from doing it or to make the choices I’ve made. My choices were right for me, but that doesn’t mean they would be right for everyone, or even anyone, else.

I too am a Rachel Maddow fan and also believe she “is a brilliant commentator and comes well armed for such conflicts”.. You couldn’t be more right on about Scott Brown “like a rat in a biology lab”!
Another very good show to watch is “The Ed Schultz show” also on MSNBC before Maddow. He really tells it like it is………..also on radio talk show too.

As for everyone else: what you don’t really want to admit is that your great social experiment was a failure. It should be pretty obvious that waiting for sex until marriage and removing no-fault divorce (perhaps a system like that in NY would be helpful) would do a lot to ensure that mothers are not impoverished and children don’t suffer.

Alaskapi: hysterical. Women who get abortions aren’t making a decision with their doctor of many years, based on a health issue; they are going to Planned Parenthood, spreading their legs open, and getting an abortion from a doctor that they’ve known for all of ten minutes.

A woman and her doctor cannot decide to kill a born child. A woman and her doctor cannot, in some states, decide to kill a third-trimester child for convenience. So, pray tell, why does a child somehow not have those rights before the magical third trimester?

alaskapi,
I’m so glad you’re part of the conversation on this porch. Poolman, you too! and many others as well. This dialogue on the bigger picture of humanity is much deeper than I would ever hear in another venue.

I taught in a Christian, private school way back when…..almost 25 years ago. After two years, I moved into public education. My mother asked, “Why?” I replied, “Because I feel the need to help ALL kids, mom.”

There is a futuristic novel written by Lois Lowry called “The Giver”. It speaks volumes about how humans treat each other and what is important as we all move through life. I’ve taught the story to my students in years past to help them understand that they are part of the social consciousness that is inherent in humanity.

From alaskapi @7:42am
“We need to keep talking about it and we need to watch what we teach our girls and boys while we move through this time of change as they will inherit our ideas for good and for bad.”

Exactly. When the federal government determines funding based on improving scores and calls a school “failed”–what are they really saying? Do I feel I failed if a child leaves my room with high academic scores but no compassion in their heart?

There is no lesson in math, reading, writing, or any other “academic discipline” that is more important than a lesson in compassion, generosity, and caring.

Our kids will determine the future of this planet–and keeping them focused on how to care about each other will go a long way in regards to the living, breathing document we all cherish–the Constitution.

Thanks, Poolman, for the background on those two websites. I chuckled when alaskapi said “endless powerpoint presentation”

“Why am I here?” That is a good place to begin searching within ourselves. Liberals, conservatives, male, female, heterosexual, homosexual, rich, poor, literate, illiterate, and I could go on and on…….

poolman-
I haven’t traipsed over to Neil’s. Probably won’t now… am weary of tightly constructed,exclusive arguments. Arguments which purport to wrap up the human condition in one fell swoop but somehow generally leave most of humanity outside the gate…
Thank you Lori- had seen reference to the study you point to but couldn’t remember when or who…
Thank you Helen and Margaret for hosting this particular soiree. For all the pie flinging going on here and there, it’s a different and much needed venue to talk about something which nets a lot of public posturing but very little discourse.
While it covers the forever of many of us, it is a mere 35-40 years that semi-reliable family planning and actual choice in relation to birth control, has been part of the human conversation. We have a long way to go to sort out what it all means.
It is scary for many to consider women may finally have actual ownership of their corporal bodies . It is scary to think the bazillion cultural hows and whys and wherefores of child carrying, having, and rearing may have to be fully re-thought.
We need to keep talking about it and we need to watch what we teach our girls and boys while we move through this time of change as they will inherit our ideas for good and for bad.

My point had nothing at all to do with whether or not we kill child rapists. In 1998, an 11 year old Brazilian girl was raped by a 37 year old man. She became pregnant and the Catholic church stepped in, took her in, from her home, and kept her to make sure she carried the baby to term, even though doctors said because she was so small carrying to term could kill her. The church prattled on and on and on about the importance of human life, yet never spoke out even one word against the man who put the poor girl in that situation. That’s my main beef with the whole “pro-life” movement. They think it’s all the woman’s fault and they aren’t at all interested in counceling young men to treat a woman’s body with respect and honor and to step up and take care of the child if an unwanted pregnancy should occur. Perhaps, Roxie, you should go back and read my other post. You missed the part about the men I know of who pressured their women into aborting because they didn’t feel like being fathers yet. The “pro-life” movement doesn’t address these men at all, and until it does, it will fail, because you can’t solve a problem by only dealing with half of it.

I would agree that states can step in and offer more help to women faced with an unwanted pregnancy IF abortion was outlawed by the state. But if it is outlawed on a federal level, then the federal government should take care of the fall out. If all these resources you name were that plentiful and easily available, more women would make avail of them.

And yes as a liberal I would be opposed to putting a child molester to death as well. Unlike you, I respect all human life, not just the humans that I feel “deserve” life. And unlike you, I’m a Christian and I believe only God has the right to take a life away, so I am opposed to the death penalty. On a moral level, I do believe life begins at conception, but I respect the law, and the law states it begins at birth. So unitl that changes…oh, and speaking of the law, I need a lesson in the Constitution? LOL sorry, already had a course in Consitutional Law in paralegal school. I got the highest grade in the class, by the way. The most important thing about it is that it’s a living document that is meant to be amended and updated as necessary when its provisions no longer fit real life in America.

And I’d love to know where you get off saying liberals make more money that conservatives. Did you ever see that clip of George Bush speaking at a $2500 a plate republican fundraiser, saying “some people call you the “haves”, I call you my base.” Every conserative I know makes more money than I do. I’d also love to know where you get off saying liberals have looser sexual morals. I’m 45 years old and still a virgin, dear. I’m a Catholic at heart and have never been married, therefor I have never had sex. However, a Bible-thumping nut whack ex friend of mine could prattle on for days about Jesus and the glories of the republican party. He could also nail anything that moved, sometimes two at a time, paid for it when he had to, conceived a child out of wed lock, couldn’t bring himself to be faithful to the child’s mother long enough to even see how it would work out. Kind of like the oh so chasted, virtuous, faithful C Street house crowd.

And as for Conservatives donating more to charity than Liberals, well, that doesn’t surprise me. Conservatives believe in giving a starving man a fish. Liberals believe in teaching the starving man how to fish.

I’m afraid it’s you who needs a serious reality check, my dear. You’ve been listening to too much Limbaugh.

M&H great post and I couldn’t agree more! Vote Connie Saltonstall for Michigan 1st district House of Representatives..

The “conservatives give more than liberals” talking point has it’s origins from a book written by Arthur C. Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University titled “Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism.” It was a 2000 talking point born from the “we hate Al Gore movement”. — Gore reportedly gave less in charitable contributions than more conservative candidates. To back up their talking point they went look for “facts”.

I like Brooks and his book offers some general insights in to the social science behind the current political climate.. ( 2000-2004) However the data he used to come to this conclusion is highly flawed and certainly not a scientific poll. And I think he wasted an awful lot of time and money to come to the conclusion all of us already knew! LOL For example he uses red states vs blue states data rather than party affiliations. He cites Austin Texas as an example of his findings by saying Austin, which voted for Kerry (56 percent= liberal in Brooks mind) ranks 48 out of 50 of the largest cities in per capita charitable giving. BUT he fails to note Austin has a disproportionate number of college students living in the city which identify as “liberal”. College students aren’t exactly known for “charitable giving”.

After all the flawed data Brook concludes that “religious” people (conservatives) give more than non religious secular people (liberals). However secular conservatives give least of all categories.

alaskapi – I went there after going to Neil’s site and saw that she posted there too. They seem to be cut from the same cloth. And you’re right – no pie, no laughing, no humanity. The only pie there would serve as ammunition in the face of someone labeled “liberal” or “democrat”.

Neil even calls out Jim Wallis and Sojourners as a false prophet/religion. He has a rant regarding the biblical principle of social justice and how Glenn Beck is right in his criticism of it. They both seem to fall into the dominionist, fundamentalist, anti-Muslim mindset fomented by groups like “the Family” and James Dobson’s Focus on the Family. They are probably pro-war, pro-huge military complex, and are likely anti-gay rights advocates. I don’t see signs of any good fruit from them, only of legalism, division, and discourse. It reminds me of the parable of the 10 virgins in Matthew 25, and much like the Pharisees and Sadducees acted in Jesus’ time on earth. If it don’t walk, act, or mimic Jesus, it doesn’t belong to Him.

poolman- I went over to Roxanne’s blog and peeked around a bit.
A fair amount of bullet point, commanding type devices of style on the horizon there.
Very tidy- big names like socialist and so on taped all over articles of comment there.
Very fancy really… just not very comfy like here at M& H’s- no pie, no laughing, no humanity… much.
Kinda like an endless power point presentation…
sigh.

Roxeanne de Luca, just because you write “fact” and follow it with a colon, doesn’t make it so. You have been watching Glenn Beck and his ilk for too long. When history doesn’t line up with your idealology, you people re-write it or twist it to fit.

And I don’t know anyone that frequents this blog that is an anti-lifer. And we are not all democrats, either. Or liberals. Obviously, you took no time in doing any research.

You are not helping your cause or winning any hearts with your condescending attitude. Is that a product of your political affiliation, personality, or religion? Just curious…

@ Roxanne: where were your “conservative principles” to help young pregnant women for the past 30 years? I don’t recall Reagan or either Bush stepping up and trying to help. Did I miss something?

Oh, and those “silly mandates on health insurance” that you refer to, would those be the ones that were signed into law last week? Because I don’t recall any mandates prior to then. Nor do I recall anyone being able to buy insurance for “about the price of a cell phone.” What country are you living in?

As far as the “lower class” being overwhelmingly female with young children, I’d say it’s because men let other men off the hook for child care. Much of that disparity can also be found when divorced women end up in a lower economic status than do divorced men. It’s misogyny at its worst – and women like you are as responsible as the rapists, deadbeat dads, and misogynists in Congress for this sad state of affairs.

If you can’t be helpful, at least get out of the way of people who are trying to help.

@Roxanne: how about some non-partisan stats to support your position that conservatives give more to charity, give more blood and do more to help homeless than liberals do. No, nothing from those conservative think tanks, please; just unbiased stats.

Sure, I’ll grant you that conservatives give to their churches in pretty big numbers – though I don’t think MORE than liberals do – but there are lots of people who don’t want a dose of religion with their help; they just need help.

And, as the old Chinese proverb says, if you save someone’s life then you’re responsible for that life. So c’mon and step up. Or shut up.

Neil says “That ignores that a female is destroyed 50% of the time during an abortion. Actually, over 50%, since virtually all gender selection abortions are performed to kill females for the sole reason that they are female. It is the ultimate misogyny.”

I don’t know how Helen’s statement regarding a woman’s choice relates to the eventual child’s sex. It would also be nice if you could back up your statement with proof, like a link to a scientific study, for example.

“All your back-slapping sound bites ignore a scientific fact: A new human being is created at conception”

That human being would not become a living, breathing person unless the mother is able to support(carry) and nourish it to term. That is when it can actually breathe the breath of life and we recognize and count it as an individual person. There are plenty of times that fetus doesn’t make it due to numerous factors. You know, the old saying, “don’t count your chickens before they hatch.” Even in the bible, a child wasn’t considered a viable, countable person until after it was weaned from its mother.

“That isn’t religion, that is science. And abortion destroys that innocent human being.”

That ‘innocent human being’, if you believe the bible, is actually born a sinner and into a world of sin. That is why Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 4:3 says “And most fortunate of all are those who were never born. For they have never seen all the evil that is done in our world.”

Roxanne-
Go powder your nose.. it’s starting to shine.
Between a woman and her doctor, there is mo liberal-conservative divide. There are no court cases, there are no facts and statistics of who gives more money or time to society…
There are 2 people.
It’s private.

That means federal funding for pre-natal care for mothers, funding for medical care for the mother and baby during and after birth, funding for parenting classes to make sure these unwilling parents who have had parenthood forced on them by you, can figure out

Where to start: Medicaid provides pre-natal medical care for all pregnant women who earn less than 133% of the federal poverty level.

Under SCHIP, families who earn less than twice the federal poverty level (or three times, in some states) are eligible for reduced-cost health insurance for their children – co-pays are approximately $15/month.

Under conservative principles, young mothers would be more easily able to afford their own medical care (or have a charity hospital pay for it), since removing silly mandates on health insurance (acupuncture! can’t charge young people less than 65-year-olds on 53 different prescriptions!) would ensure that young mothers could get health care for about the cost of a cell phone bill.

As for everything else: why does the federal government need to pay for it? Crisis pregnancy centres will help with parenting classes; states, not the feds, can take care of other things.

Perhaps, while states are at it, they can expend their money giving people like you a lesson in the Constitution. :D

The anti-life crowd (i.e. you and your ilk) do nothing to help children once they are born. Nothing. You want your neighbours to help out, but Hell would freeze over before a liberal actually stood in a soup kitchen line, volunteered to use his tax-preparation skills to help out the impoverished, or otherwise did something besides electing people who tax other people.

Fact: conservatives give more to charity than liberals do, even though they earn less.

Fact: conservatives even give more BLOOD than liberals do. Talk about pro-life!

Fact: conservative policies do more to help out struggling people (or ensure that they don’t struggle from the start) than do socialist policies. In capitalist America, “poverty” means heat, hot water, healthy food, SCHIP, a warm bed, maybe a car, a microwave, and a cell phone. In countries without our history of capitalism, even “middle class” means infection, starvation, unsanitary living conditions, and technology that is from the 1950s.

Fact: liberal advocacy for pre-marital sex and sex without strings has done so much to cause harm that the billions spent to alleviate it has done nothing. Since the liberals started with their “sex is fun!” meme, rates of unwed childbirth have skyrocketed. That is one of the single biggest indicators of how people turn out: 70% of people in prison are from unwed parents, compared to 15% of the same-age population. Concurrent with the rise in out-of-wedlock childbirth (despite the soaring rates of birth control and steady rates for abortion), the lower classes in America have become increasingly populated by women. Once, it was nearly 50/50; now, it’s overwhelmingly female – unmarried, with kids, female.

I suspect, though, that actual facts aren’t something that you’ll listen to, since it’s all about emotions and voting for Democrats, not about doing what is best for women and children. If it were, you would be a capitalist pro-lifer.

“That is a straw man argument. I know it is convenient to demonize your opponents instead of addressing their arguments, but really now — all pro-lifers call for the death of any pro-choicers? C’mon.”

OMG Neil, I CANNOT believe you actually said this. Have you been living under a rock somewhere for the last 6 months? For a year a “pro-lifer” named Bill O’Reilly called for the death of pro-choice doctor George Tiller, and whenever they could, “pro-lifers” Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter and Glenn Beck joined him. Well, another “pro-lifer” answered Billo’s call and in fact killed Dr. Tiller. Did you not hear about that?

“I hadn’t noticed that. There are more crisis pregnancy centers than abortion clinics, and they offer their services for free — unlike Planned Parenthood, who charges $400 for abortions no matter how poor you are.”

I believe the poster you were quoting was talking about what happens in the years after birth, not during or just after. There would be about 1.5 million more unwanted children in the country, and it’s silly to just say “ok, you’re parents now, do the right thing.” If they were willing or able to ‘do the right thing’ you wouldn’t have to have legally stopped them from killing their baby to start with. So you have made the decision for this woman or this couple that they MUST bring this child into the world. You forced people who were not ready, willing or able to be parents, to be parents. That then behooves you to take responsibility for that child. I am actually what I call “comprehensively pro-life.” I would not be opposed to making abortion illegal again IF it were done responsibily. That means federal funding for pre-natal care for mothers, funding for medical care for the mother and baby during and after birth, funding for parenting classes to make sure these unwilling parents who have had parenthood forced on them by you, can figure out
how to parent, funding for GED courses, college and job training, funding for federal day care so the mothers can make avail of education and job training, and then work so they can support themselves and their children to make sure there is no increase in the feminization of poverty, funding for free or discounted legal services so these women can go after deadbead dads in court, more funding for more programs like WIC, and better and more comprehensive sex education classes in high schools, and funding to help with the ridiculously prohibitive costs of adoptions, so good people with good, loving homes to offer, but not $30,000, to start, just to buy a baby, could actually afford to adopt. I would support legislation to ban abortion if it came in some such comprehensive package, but I’m willing to bet you would not. So, you would get in the face of some poor girl who is alone, abandoned, terrified and broke, without insurance, without an education or any way to make any money or support herself, and scream at her “don’t kill your baby!!!!!!” and pass a law that says she has no say if she is faced with a situation she feels is insurmountable, or if her health is threatened by the pregnancy, or if she was raped and cannot live with her rapist’s seed inside her, or if her baby is so sick or so deformed that she feels it would be more merciful to end the pregnancy, and insist that she do what you say, according to YOUR religious and moral views, (and by the way, you probably wouldn’t have one word to say about the man who raped her, committed fornication, adultery or incest to get her pregnant, or who got her pregnant and said “sorry, not my problem, bye!” or “I’m not ready to be a father, get rid of it or I’m leaving you”) but you’re not willing to get up off a few tax dollars to make it less of a hardship for her and her baby? That’s what you call hypocritical.

“And even if we did nothing to help with our time and money, we could still protest the destruction of innocent human life. If the government was going to solve the homeless problem by killing homeless people, could you protest that without having to take them into your house?”

This logic is quite conveluted. We’re not talking about the government stepping in and deciding who gets to live and who doesn’t deserve to be here. That is not what legalized abortion is, so your comparison simply does not hold any water at all. Abortion is about the government staying OUT of what happens within a woman’s body, staying OUT of her healthcare decisions and her life, not to mention her uterus. NOT the government stepping in and deciding FOR someone ELSE who lives or dies. It’s not the same thing at all. You see, I didn’t create the homeless person, I did not make him homeless, so why should I take him into my home? If you pass a law outlawing abortion, you WILL be creating, or at least taking part in creating, a child that the parents are not ready, willing or able to take care of, a child that the parents couldn’t bring into this world for whatever reason, and a child who would not be here if YOU hadn’t made the government intercede. To intercede and force a child to be born who would not have been born had it not been for you and your intervention, and then for you to wipe your hands of it and say “not my problem now!!” is not only hypocritical but incredibly irresponsible, arrogant, and selfish, and just wrong, and that’s precisely why you and yours had control of the White House, congress and the Supreme Court and still couldn’t make abortion illegal again. It’s not really the child at all you care about if you refuse to take responsibility for the life you forced to come into the world, it’s the power of foisting your religious views on other people that you’re getting off on. Don’t try to act like you actually care about all these poor, innocent unborn children. You couldn’t care less, and you know it. If you did, you’d be only too willing to take some responsibility for them after they are born. But you are not.

The scenario you describe with the homeless people is actually closer to capital punishment, which I am against, but I bet you are all for. So I guess human life has value to you, unless that human does something that really pisses you off. Then, fry ’em!!!

In addition, regardless of what your pro-life slanted “science” says, the federal law says that a a person is not a person until it is out of the womb and takes a breath on its own. A fetus is not legally a person. A homeless person has legal rights. As repugnant as it may be to you, a fetus does not.

Neil says: [em]Have you ever noticed that anti-abortionists don’t give a damn about the baby once it’s out of the womb? That’s when all interest in life ceases with these folks.[/em]

I hadn’t noticed that. There are more crisis pregnancy centers than abortion clinics, and they offer their services for free — unlike Planned Parenthood, who charges $400 for abortions no matter how poor you are.

——

Now I have to chuckle at the “pregnancy center” as the key word here is pregnancy. What are the anti abortion crowd doing AFTER the pregnancy? I hear lots of “not my taxes” in references to health care, child care, special education, etc AFTER the baby is born. Lots of whine, cry, bitchin’ and moaning.

Sure there are some programs to help DURING the pregnancy, IF one can qualify, but nothing after the cord is cut. Until the ANTI crowd can help for the next 18 years, they should sit down and shush.

Until one can walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, one shouldn’t be yapping on with the condemnation.

[…] on March 28, 2010 by Neil As evidence that some people get older without getting wiser, this pro-abortion post by an elderly woman and the accompanying comments section trotted out one fallacious sound bite […]

You must be thrilled that Stupak was just milking the whole thing for attention. In the end he just cared about himself, not the unborn.

Like my husband says, “Whether or not to have a child is a woman’s choice. Period. End of story.”

That ignores that a female is destroyed 50% of the time during an abortion. Actually, over 50%, since virtually all gender selection abortions are performed to kill females for the sole reason that they are female. It is the ultimate misogyny.

All your back-slapping sound bites ignore a scientific fact: A new human being is created at conception — http://tinyurl.com/yfje8lq . That isn’t religion, that is science. And abortion destroys that innocent human being.

And how those a-holes have the gall to call themselves ‘pro-life’ when they are calling for death to anyone who is pro-choice is beyond me.

That is a straw man argument. I know it is convenient to demonize your opponents instead of addressing their arguments, but really now — all pro-lifers call for the death of any pro-choicers? C’mon.

For some women it is a time of great sadness – a pregnancy gone wrong, a wanted child not to be

Using that logic one could support infanticide.

Against abortion? Don’t have one.

Slave owners used the same nonsensical argument. It is like saying, “Don’t like theft? Then don’t steal.” Once again you ignore the human being in the equation who gets killed.

Have you ever noticed that anti-abortionists don’t give a damn about the baby once it’s out of the womb? That’s when all interest in life ceases with these folks.

I hadn’t noticed that. There are more crisis pregnancy centers than abortion clinics, and they offer their services for free — unlike Planned Parenthood, who charges $400 for abortions no matter how poor you are.

And even if we did nothing to help with our time and money, we could still protest the destruction of innocent human life. If the government was going to solve the homeless problem by killing homeless people, could you protest that without having to take them into your house?

For all of you morons who want to talk about the man’s rights in all of this… slippery slop folks. If he has a right to make her carry the baby to term, then wouldn’t he also have the right to demand an abortion? Forces abortions. Now there’s a thought. Nope. Woma’s choice. Her body. Her choice. LEGAL in this country by the way. Not murder. And about it being a sin???? Whatever. Does that mean it is OK for non-christian women to have one? Whatever.

If only there were some way to make men suffer 9 months then endure 30 hours of labor. Perhaps then we could get them to sit down and be quiet on the matter.

If only they could suffer the swollen ankles, lack of sleep, months and months of spending half their waking hours hovered over the toilet throwing up their guts. (there were times I would not have been surprised to see my shoes if you know what I mean) To suffer the rise in blood pressure, the constant kicking from within. The little feet stuck in the ribs, or pushing the hips out. (talk about pain!)

Struggle to get in/out of bed and on/off of chairs and couches. The extra weight, redistribution of balance. Oh yes, and the heart burn that’s killer with nothing to take for it.

The gestational diabetes to the point of having to have 4 shots a day, two types of insulin and checking blood glucose 8 times a day. All the way to the point of being just two units away from maximum allowable for the insulin.

Then of course make sure he’s put through every test known to mankind. Because some of us have to go through that during our pregnancies. Make sure its a 43 week gestational period as well. (that’s how long my girls took to cook) Both for the baby and himself because of the risk of organ failure.

After all that, labor and deliver WITHOUT drugs.

Lets top all that off with the added bonus of no health insurance coverage. Every penny must be paid out of pocket as some of us can’t (or at least couldn’t before this health care bill passed into law) get insurance.

This is all the fun stuff, you guys should see how bad it can get! I surely wish each and every man could go through this at least once, perhaps then they’d shut their yaps and leave this decision to each individual woman, as it should be.

I have a grandson whose wife has a saying: No woman should have more children than she has hands.

My grandson is a very good young man, who has grown since his marriage to one hell of a smart woman. When the decision about birth control after the 2nd child was born, he knew that he would not want more children and could probably not afford them. So he chose to have a vasectomy at 25. He was a bit reluctant to discuss it once it happened. However, in the past few years, he has told several of his friends who have children and are not going to ever make the kind of money large familes require now, that they need to think of the children they have and to have a vasectomy.

When I was growing up, I used to hear my father joke that the rich have money and the poor have children. I fear that too often that is true even today. Even with all of the information about birth control that was unavailable to even my generation (I’m 77) too many women get pregnant and too many men think that they should not be the ones to care about birth control.

EVEN IF A MAN OR (AND) WOMAN USES CONTRACEPTION EVERY SINGLE TIME, THERE IS STILL A CHANCE OF PREGNANCY. (It’s right there on the label!)

If you don’t want to be a parent, keep your man parts away from her woman parts.

It amazes me how arrogant humans are in general over their supposed ability to control their environment – Stupak included. If you don’t want an abortion, don’t have one, but don’t tell anyone else what they can or cannot do with their uterus.

Hallelujah! Amen! Don’t they realize that it isn’t really a matter of choice or no choice. It’s just a matter of who makes the choice–the individual or the government. And if we decide that the government is the entity that can make the choice about childbearing, then somewhere, sometime in this country some part of the government will be allowed to decide a some woman carrying a fetus is some condition must have an abortion. We have a judicial system based on precedent, and if the precedent is set that the government is the deciding entity, that could happen.

It seems to me that some of the nasty rhetoric that is out there could be classifed as inciting. I believe there are still some black panthers (H. Rap Brown) who are still in prison for the same things that are being done and said. Old white guys also don’t put other old white guys in prison, just young black ones…

No One’s Puppet, heard her screechiness herself this afternoon on CNN, when she was addressing the crowd in Nevada, had to suffer through it. My husband took the remote and I had my computer on my lap working on a report, and could not get up as much I as I wanted to do so. Hard to take indeed! But we had a good laugh about her remarks on teleprompters when she was damn right reading her copious notes and toting a bunch of papers about. We were like, serve her right! Got herself backed into a corner now! Won’t be able to use the teleprompter ever again! The teleprompter meant progress in speech giving, the rest of us thought. Well, not anymore! Bush sure used it too, why there were no outcries then, we wonder! Talk about regressing! Good old republicans are regressing the same about other things too. It will serve them right when they realize they are left with only the fringe element.

I keep saying that men shouldn’t be allowed to have opinions on abortion, period. They sit, safe and sound, knowing that no matter what happens, they will NEVER have to face the consequences that pregnancy does to a person’s body (even in the best pregnancy, there are still lifestyle restrictions and physical unpleasantness, after all). Every single woman, on the other hand (unless she has had a hysterectomy and is irrevocably unable to conceive), has to face the fact that she might have to go through that some day, no matter how small the chance (after all, sterilization can fail, and lesbian/celibate women can be raped). If you can look at that possibility and everything it could mean for you and your life–up to and including lifelong disability or death–and still say that no, you would not have an abortion, then fine. But to know you’ll never EVER EVER NO MATTER WHAT have to deal with that, and then try to have an opinion on whether someone else should risk their health, sanity, and life based on how bad YOU think it might or might not be…just, no. No way. Shut your mouth already. I don’t dictate your prostate, so it is none of your business to say whether I’d be able to handle pregnancy physically, emotionally, or financially.

Peace is the answer. Both parties must approach these issues with an open heart. With love in there hearts and minds. Only then will such issues be moved in the direction of solutions. And if the republicans choose not to come to the table with such positive and open minds then shoot the bastards.

Well, I’m an old white guy, and I think prevention is the best way to minimize the need for abortion.

While I personally think it’s a bad choice, I recognize that there are often no better choices available. But it’s not my choice. It’s a woman’s choice. Abortion should be freely available, fully funded, delivered without harassment, and as rare as possible.

What really scares me is the rise of the idiocracy. Large numbers, very large numbers, of people think Obama is “the antichrist.” They think global warming/climate disruption is a hoax. The think the Bill of Rights (when it’s shown to them without a title) is the Communist Manifesto. They think Saddam sent guys on planes to bomb the World Trade Centers. They think Mexico is north of the U.S. and that New Mexico is a different country. They can’t identify a tomato if shown one. Unfortunately, many of them are armed and have lots of free time, since they’re unemployed. What now?

I’ve said about all I want to say on this topic and I defer to those who have offered their observations to this point and let them know that at least one old white guy understands the situation as well as can be expected and agrees totally with H&M’s position. I just wish a few more old white guys could join the discussion especially those who understood what was going on prior to Roe v Wade.

But here’s a different subject that’s a bit off topic

Rachel Maddow has invited Scott Brown to appear on her show but so far she’s gotten no response. To demonstrate that he is less cowardly than those who hide on the floor of the house chambers and shout things like “You Lie!” or “Baby Killers!” he should appear. Show your support for such a discussion by going to the link below and sending a message to good old Scotty asking why he is afraid of her.

Prediction: He’ll weasel away without any response.
But I can understand. Rachel is the most brilliant political commentator on the air today and comes well armed for such conflicts. And she is a thrill to watch because she doesn’t need to resort to shrill threatening rhetoric, she comes armed with the truth and would dissect poor Scotty’s comments like a rat in a biology lab. And she will do it in a low key way, with charm and grace and, – above all, – the facts..

Wow! Here it is Saturday, sun out bright and almost warm. And here I am just about breathless after reading all these messages and channel flipping to see if I can get anything but talking heads sqwaking about the terrible socialism/communism Obama has sunk us into, especially on abortion. Gimmeabreak!

Once upon a time I was involved in prison ministry through my church. Didn’t last long at this. Every single one of those guys said something like “I wish I had been aborted so I would not have had to go through the hell of the life I’ve had.” Lesson I learned is that as bad as it can be to have an unwanted child it is even worse to be an unwanted child.

As for the tea party screamers, all they have to do is write a letter to whoever in the government insisting that they never, ever be covered by any sort of “government controlled” health care no matter how dire their circumstances, and the same for their families. I would bet there wouldn’t be any takers on that one! Scream, yes! Vilify others and demean themselves to the nth degree but get right down to it and when things hit the fan they will insist on being first in line for treatment and scream bloody murder if they don’t get it immediately if not sooner!

Thought you might want to know, the local news Las Vegas Sun, reports there are hundreds at Searchlight, NV to protest Harry Reid, but some are the Senator’s supporters they are in the pictures, waving their signs of support.

Words from Barbara Bush delivered during her commencement address at Wellesly College back in 1989 ish………..
“Where do the mermaids stand–all those who are different, those who do not fit the boxes and the pigeonholes?….Diversity, like anything worth having, requires effort. Effort to learn about and respect difference, to be compassionate with one another, to cherish our own identity, and to accept unconditionally the same in others.”

Just found that interesting this morning….. Yesterday, after dealing with some squabbles among my 5h grade students, I tried to help them understand that there will be those that they do not like, do not get along with, do not want to be around–and life will be more difficult than easy.
However, this fact of life does not need to lessen the amount of civility among us all.

Auntie Jean: Thank you for your kind words. Just so I’m clear–video wasn’t directed at me personally. They were doing a “neighborhood drop” at every door. But the sheer lack of concern for the circumstances of the people (such as myself) to whom they were subjecting it is stunning.

“If tomorrow congress decided to legalize you to take your child for any reason you wish (such as you can no longer afford her), to a Doctors office where he would administer her a drug to put her to sleep like we do an animal would you say that it is ok, just because it is no longer illegal?”

Mark – it’s not ok to put an animal to sleep just because you can no longer afford or no longer feel like taking care of him. As a dog owner, and as someone who loves my dog as a member of my family, I am just as horrified at that idea as you are at the idea of someone doing that to their child. Does that mean I should I have the legal right to stop you from putting Fido down because you can’t afford him AND a new car?

Arguing law from a moral stand point gets us nowhere, because we all have a different one.

To Dave, J and others who feel a man has a say in whether a woman keeps an unwanted baby…

I frequent a web site where people go to discuss relationship issues and exchange advice and stories and such. In a 1 1/2 year time span, four different women at different times came to the board stating they were pregnant and their significant other was not ready to be a father, so he basically said “have an abortion or I’m leaving you.” Unfortunately three of the four had the abortion and at least one ended up seriously, seriously regretting it, to the detriment of her mental health. The other two did not update us on what happened afterward. The fourth was only in a “friends with benefits” type of situation, and her partner was angry because she had said she would defer to him and do what he wanted should an unwanted pregnancy occur, and he wanted it aborted, but she changed her mind. He felt betrayed. Fortunately, we were able to convince her to keep her baby, telling her she had a right to change her mind and bring her baby into the world if that’s what her heart was telling her to do.

Abortion was never meant, from a legal standpoint, to serve as a form of birth control, but unfortunately, too many people are using it for that these days. It was meant as a last resort for desperate people who find themselves in an impossible situation. But it seems to me that men who want to be able to say “hey, I don’t want to be a father, I should have a say in whether she births the unwanted baby” are failing to understand that by law, the only thing they really have to sacrifice for an unwanted child is some money every month. It’s the woman who suffers the swollen ankles, stretch marks, being put on the “mommy track” at work, 2am feedings, Mommy and Me and Gymboree classes, passing up on education and career opportunities, and everything else. It’s the woman who actually has the life growing inside her, and for most women the decision whether to keep the child or not is a very weighty, heavy one. I simply cannot imagine having a living being inside me, my flesh and blood, my future, growing and living inside me, that I wanted to birth, raise and love and accept as family, but killing it because the man in my life wanted me to. I’m sorry, but I just have to say, wanting that right over any woman is monsterous. Just as surely as putting all the blame of abortion on “selfish” women who “don’t want a little inconvenience” is monsterous.

If a man doesn’t want an abortion on his conscience, then he should get a vasectomy or use a condom every time, and know very well who he’s sleeping with and only sleep with women who share his pro life views. If a man is not ready to be a father and does not want the woman he’s sleeping with to have his baby, then he should take responsibility for that and protect himself every time, and I would also suggest perhaps being more selective in choosing sexual partners, have the “what would we do if you got pregnant” talk, and accept that the baby grows in her body and she does in fact have the final say. I know men are used to being in control of everything else, having total and complete freedom to choose what they want to have happen in their life, and they are used to women deferring to them in every other aspect of life, but nature dictates that this is simply the one exception. If you don’t want to have a baby with the woman you’re sleeping with, then make darn sure you don’t get her pregnant, or stop sleeping with her and find a nice girl you wouldn’t mind having a kid with. Deal, guys.

So very glad to hear from you again Helen………I worry when so much time passes and we haven’t heard from you. Your wonderful wisdom is very much appreciated.

Colorado Blue on 3-25-10 – 9:48am………….right on…….couldn’t have said it better myself. Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity and Fox news,Palin and Bachman are all hate mongers and are going to cause something very bad to happen!! They are disgusting people and I wish they would all be sent somewhere together so they could not cause any more hate than they already have!

It is hard to believe that anyone could be so cruel and callous as to have left that disgusting videotape – anonymously? Well, yes, I guess I can believe it since such ignorance walks among us all the time.

I was 33 in 1963 when my Ectopic ruptured. (A pregnancy in a Fallopian Tube. The embryo was only about seven weeks, I was told, and probably died during the rupture. It had not yet reached the fetal stage.) I just barely made it to the hospital in time since I was literally bleeding to death. Emergency surgery was required to stop it and repair the damage. The doctors (plural) said it was like having a tire blow out on a car at a high speed. I had never heard of such a thing and I was relatively mature and enlightened – I thought.

I had had a successful pregnancy, twins, with two healthy boys, six years old. The whole Ectopic episode was traumatic to our entire family. There was a happy ending for us though. A year later, under careful medical supervision throughout the pregnancy, I delivered our youngest healthy son.

Which brings me to my soapbox – – again. I think it is appalling that most men and plenty of women know absolutely nothing about reproductive physiology except for the fun parts. It takes YEARS of study by medical professionals to even know about the wide variety of complications that can and do occur, let alone to have the skills to remedy them. Some cannot be remedied.

So every time anyone, especially politicians and the clergy start expounding on what they know nothing about, they are exposing themselves just as if they were standing there stark naked. (Try to visualize that! It’s good for a giggle or two.) To put it as delicately, as I can, I would like to cordially invite them to BUTT OUT!

What’s the answer? C’mon. Get real. Universal sex education at as early an age as is appropriate. If anyone thinks preschoolers are too young, have you ever found any of them ‘playing doctor’? Or putting buttons up their noses, screwdrivers in electric outlets? It’s not enough to ‘just say no’ to stiffle inherent curiosity.

This week I’ve heard protests from reform haters screeching that they want, no, DEMAND, big government OUT of their health care.
helloooooooo! And what do they think legislating a woman’s reproductive decisions is????
(A protest sign held up back during the Sr. Bush administration hit the nail on the head, it said, “Bush! Stay out of MINE!!!)

I checked the site for the first time since I posted here, so except for skimming, i don’t know what you have been discussing.

Its Tea Partier’s No one’s puppetA, Madison, and whomever I missed. Please don’t confuse what you do in your spare time with the name of a political movement.

Rae, I am a “skinny white man” . I have lost twenty pounds since June to get ready for the new health insurance law.

Donna, the definition of murder is a value judgment. Call it what you will, the result is still a dead body. We condemn the act except when it is acceptable, and even commendable.

What I did in the service was in self defense, but I was still a murderer.

I oppose the death penalty too because it is state- sponsored murder, in my opinion.

I am pro-choice because sometimes a mother’s health and well being takes precedence over an unborn baby’s.

I believe the change from maternalism to paternalism likely had more to do with the development of agriculture and towns than sexual politics, Jean.

Hunter gatherer societies tended to be migratory, and women worked closer to the hearth while men were often gone. Women had and cared for the babies, while they gathered food, and since where they were was “home,” society centered around them.

As agriculture developed, property, trade, and territory became more important, than before, and men were suited for the new conditions. They invented new gods for their non migratory lives. Lillith may be one of the last vestiges of dominant female deities.

Colorado Blue, some people compared Bush to Hitler and a man even wrote a book fantasing about Bush’s assasination. Some people fancied which members of Bush’s administration were equivalent to various members of Hitler’s government. Someone compared Condolisa Rice to Aunt Jamimah.

Several years earlier, Alec Baldwin joked on national television that people should stone Henry Hyde. During the last campaign, liberal thugs injured Tea Partiers, not the other way around. Its politics as usual.

Jo Atlanta–you cannot blame every yooper for a few yahoos who get in front of a camera. You might want to check out the Yooper in Crackerland blog, for another take on Yoopers. I am sure that there are more tea baggers in Atlanta than all of the UP.

My sentiments exactly! A few months ago I accompanied a married friend to a THE abortion clinic in Cleveland. She had very sadly but courageously elected to have a 2nd trimester abortion because after 3 separate tests it was confirmed that her baby had no kidneys and would die upon birth. She felt that she would be less emotionally damaged by aborting the baby than by carrying it to term and having it die within minutes. All of her friends and relatives supported her on this decision. Well — guess who was picketing the abortion clinic? You guess it — a VERY old white man. He started yelling and us and I threatened to shove his sign up his butt and if he hadn’t shut up I believe I would have. My friend did NOT need this!

Also Judith’s post on March 25, 2010 at 7:37 PM
Thanks for a very important and true insight.

“At a certain income level, it’s called ‘ A ski vacation in Switzerland’ and trimesters don’t matter. Laws, like taxes, are for the little people.”

Amen. Some of the people attempting re-election by running on the abortion issue better be sure their own personal coverups are securely fastened. Because the “little people” who think their heros live like they talk are not going to be happy.

Geeze, got all worked up about skinny white men, and lost my comment. I’ll try again. When exactly was the last time you saw a skinny white man (skate boarders and meth addicts excepted)? And anyway, race and weight have nothing much to do with misogyny. I’m thinking it has more to do with religious fervor, and that, it’s beginning to seem to me, has much to do with assuring access to women, who must be taught obedience! Thanks, Helen, for speaking your mind in the face of all that.

Here is a little irony for you, the tea baggers are coming to Searchlight, NV this Saturday, hometown of Majority Leader Harry Reid, complete with speeches by Sarah Palin and Ann Coulter. That same day, Harry Reid will be opening a new shooting range north of Las Vegas, that he worked very hard to get for the community, the president of NRA will be Harry’s guest at the opening of the shooting range. So much for Democrats being anti-Second Amendment.

Agreed! And since women make up over half the population, it’s time to make our voices heard by VOTING such small minded skinny, white guys OUT and electing someone who will respond positively to women’s concerns.

Donna, I am so sorry and outraged that anyone would do that to you. Check your state laws. It may qualify as assault. I’ve read Eric Hoffer’s book The True Believer. Between that and my own experience, these anti-choice militants (of whatever degree) are just plain permanently twisted and lost.

Mark: You miss my point. The government kills when it applies the death penalty. That is not murder (and by the way, I oppose it). Killing in war (if done in accordance with the applicable laws) is not murder. Suicide is not murder. Because something results in a death does not mean it is murder. It means, simply, that there was a death. You may or may not oppose death under those circumstances.

It’s amazing how, more than any other topic, sex and the abortion issue can make people sit up and take notice. This goes way beyond republicans and democrats, conservatives and liberals. It’s the inexorable intersection of sexism, religion and politics. This probably goes as far back as Paleolithic and Neolithic Man.

It all had to do with perpetuation of the species and still does. The female gave birth to the babies and cared for them. The male impregnated the female and then fed and protected all of them from predators. No problem.

However, back in the Hunter/Gatherer Cave Man days, neither had a clue that the male participated at all in the procreative process. Sex was a natural drive that brought on copulation at any old time. After all the human female’s reproductive cycle is much more subtle than the estrus cycles of other animals. As a result, early societies were matrilineal. The Seneca tribe of the Native American Indians still traces its genealogy through the mother. For sure, a mother ALWAYS knows a child is hers.

It’s a different story with the father. The thought processes probably took a very long time, but once they made the connection that the male contributed to procreation, societies did an about face into paternalism. It could be a little IFFY as to who the father was!!! Ego set in to insure without a doubt that a child was indeed that of a specific father. Before DNA. (Then there is the old story of the men behaving like a couple of Long Horned Rams butting heads for the sexual favors of the Ewe.)

So cultures went from maternalistic to paternalistic; from the protective male to domination and ultimately subjugation of the female. The male was and still is usually bigger and stronger than the female and thus physically able to enforce his will.

Somewhere along the line, religion got into the act to shape cultural aspects. Then politics joined in and the whole scenario became self-perpetuating.

Back then, the Hunters/Gatherers didn’t know any better, but now we do.

Many of the loudest arbortion opponents support killing Muslims. Crusaders who justify illegal invasion, devastation of life and property, privatization of national resources, and establishment of permanent military bases. Dominionists occupying lands that we deem valuable for strategic or economic purposes. That has been the US imperialist MO for centuries. Look where that got the Native Americans… the Hawaiians…the Filipinos… This list is pretty long. Where is justice for the Iraq war? Why do we keep rewarding, promoting, and protecting our greatest criminals? Is this a race or a class issue? It isn’t justice.

Yeah, throw out the abortion football so the focus is on the game. Get ’em all worked into a frenzy. Watch ’em chase their tail. Help ’em lose focus on the big picture.

Though I do not advocate abortion as a form of birth control, like is the practice in some countries (China for instance) to control population growth, I disagree that it can be defined as murder. Not if you understand the definition of murder. Not allowing legal and professional abortions is a much greater crime. This is such a devisive issue that has been successfully used to polarize the masses by those whose intent is to keep us fighting among ourselves. Why Abortion is Not Murder.

Donna so sorry to hear that you are unable to have children and I am certain that you grieved the loss of each of your children. I am also sorry that someone was so crass as to give you those videos. I do not agree with their belief that a D&C was murder.
Your argument that murder is a legal definition and since abortion is not illegal it is ok is not logical.
If tomorrow congress decided to legalize you to take your child for any reason you wish (such as you can no longer afford her), to a Doctors office where he would administer her a drug to put her to sleep like we do an animal would you say that it is ok, just because it is no longer illegal?

You are amazing women and I wish I was one tenth as brave, outspoken and smart as the two of you. Keep it up. We younger women (and I’m not that much younger) need to watch and learn so that someday we can maybe become wisdom speakers like you both are. Thank you, a thousand times over. Thank you.
Sunny

I have been reading all the posts and have been mulling over whzt to write in response.
A story my grandmother to ld me when I was 12 about HER mother came to miiiind. From there on my language deteriorated to sunch an degree that I knew it was probable that I would get shut down.
So all I will say is God Bless you all.

We missed you, Helen!
THANK YOU for your two cents on this. I look forward to each and every post. I have to agree with “Tanya from Texas”. Please write a book some day. I wouldn’t think it would be difficult for you. You certainly have plenty to say!

Well, for some people, sex is a crime and babies (or death) are the punishment.

They make no distinctions between stages of pregnancy – in fact, many of the anti-abortion bills are deliberately phrased in a way that would extend them to prohibit birth control pills. They prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg! Which, as we all know, is exactly the same as a two year old. Hunh?

If science could prove when ‘life’ begins, it would have done so. The ‘potential for life’ is not the same thing and can’t enjoy the same legal protection. (Two high schoolers of different sexes across the room from each other holds some ‘potential for life’.) The trimester system is an artificial construct invented to try to address this and, while it’s not perfect, it’s the best thing we’ve got and it’s worked pretty well. A third trimester abortion is damned hard to get unless the woman is in danger of death or disability.

That is, assuming you’re not rich. If the Republiklans ever seriously tried to outlaw abortion for everyone, there’d be hell to pay. At a certain income level, it’s called ‘ A ski vacation in Switzerland’ and trimesters don’t matter. Laws, like taxes, are for the little people.

If your religion states when life begins, go ahead and apply that – to yourself. If your religion states that homosexuality is a sin, go ahead and apply that – to yourself. We get to apply our own beliefs to ourselves. Laws are based on Democracy. And, if we get it right, science.

If your religion states that it’s ok to threaten the lives of legislators and their families, in the name of Defending Life – well, that’s an actual crime. A Federal one, I believe. Not to mention hypocritical raised to a psychopathic level.

“Murder” is a legal concept. Abortion is not illegal. Accordingly, abortion is not murder.

I shall share a small story. My husband and I wanted children more than anything. We have a chromosomal incompatibility that resulted in seven late term miscarriages before we were diagnosed.

At the time of the third miscarriage, when I was feeling as low as a person can feel, the doorbell rang and someone had left a videotape there called “The Hard Truth.” This was put out by a hardcore anti-choice group and it claimed that any D & C was murder, going into far more graphic details.

Having just gone through my third D & C, I was stunned at both the insensitivity and stupidity of these people. And it continues to be evidenced in people such as Mark, who truly seems to believe that, because his wife chose not to terminate a pregnancy, he is competent to judge others’ choices.

Mikat, I was awestruck by your story. I am glad you are here to share it. Everything happens for a reason and there is a good reason why you are here.

If only we, as a society, could be evolved enough to realize that taking care of the weakest among us would benefit us all as a whole. When we reach that point, even the abortion debate will become moot since everybody would know that every baby that comes here would be taken care off. The choice to keep babies would be made easier. Choice though is the word. It should not be legislated.

Helen, you rock!
I wish you could talk to my Grandfather. He would be the leader of the Tea Bag Party if they would let him. I am new to your blog and I just have to say I am SO glad to see that there are people of my Grandparent’s generation that can actually make sense of all this mess. They scare me…you don’t.

I’m a Michigander. I called Stupak probably 6 times (OK, maybe 20), wrote emails, and even wrote an old-fshioned letter with a stamp, something I don’t ordinarily do. The message was: “Hold up health care reform for your personal beliefs on one matter, and I will do everything I can to boot your bottom out of Washington.”

I am pro-choice. I know that most of the yahoos spouting pro-life political messages are women-hating goons just exploiting a hot topic to their political advantage.

But, since there are many people in this country who feel that abortion is morally wrong, withholding federal funding for that procedure makes some sense. Don’t make it illegal. Don’t make it so difficult to obtain that only wealthy women have access. Don’t make it difficult for private organizations — Planned Parenthood, for example — to raise funds for it. But don’t use tax dollars to fund it. Or at least, allow states to make the decision.

I would suggest we also withhold federal funding for Viagra, for breast implants, for popular, well-marketed pharmaceuticals for which evidence of efficacy is weak. Just saying …

I hear you there JuneauJoe. That sort of behaviour really chaps my @ss too.

One listens to these guys run on and on about ‘sanctity of life’ and (supposedly) ‘pro-life’. Yup, all about saving the little babies right up to the birth. After that you are on your own.

First things cut are always programs that serve the children and support mothers. As you said SCHIP is out the door, cuts to Medicaid, education, childcare and a whole host of other programs all designed for kids.

Second up to get the cuts are of course family shelters, women’s shelters and homeless shelters.

I’m glad the bill passed. I’m glad the president signed it. If only the Republicans would sit down and shut it. We need this health care reform. Even if it doesn’t cover abortion, at least it covers the issues of pre-existing conditions, not allowing insurance companies to either price out or drop altogether their customers because of health problems.

Then you have Arizona who this past week dropped the health care for 40,000 poor children. They dropped the SCHIP program.

They really care for our youth – NOT!!!

Force kids into the world and they are on their own. My Granddaughter went to the hosp last month for a hard time breathing. 3 nights in the hospital = $5000.00. That is without the Doctor bills. My grand child has insurance but now there are 40,000 without.

Abortion is not an option that would be used that often but it needs to be an option between the Woman and the Doctor.

dddddd,
Thank you, That is my point. Unwanted children do not always grow up to be responsible human beings. Unwanted children are all too often the angry, hurt, and miserable people you see in prison, on death row, hurting other children, using drugs and alcohol to “forget”. When they grow up these are the very people the Republicans want us to hurry up and send to death row to KILL. Hmmmm, something just doesn’t fit here. Babies are cute and cuddly, teenagers and adults, shucks, they are expendable!
All forms of birth control are neccessary in order to provide CHOICE.
Thank you Tine, ((Hugs back at you)) I am happy to be here, but stand by my point. If given a choice, I would not have been born. We cannot miss what we never had.

What you don’t understand is a girl who was gang raped and got pregnant should have the option of abortion. (I am talking about a student I had in my class many years ago.) She chose abortion and neither I or you should have the right to tell her what decision to make.

Abortion should be between a woman/ girl and her doctor. (By the way: Father was one of the rapists – so don’t play the, get parental permission game with this one.) 5 or guys fellows ended up in jail.

I am so glad that you are back and hope that you are well! We all seem to need a forum where really good sense, compassion, and and a bit of sarcastic humor thrives!

My question is why do some people think that “Pro-Choice” means “Pro-Abortion”? How narrow are their minds? Can they really look through keyholes with both eyes at the same time? Can they not read “Pro CHOICE” and understand 2 simple words? Ugh.

Helen the problem you have is that you refuse to call the act of abortion for profit what it really is, MURDER. I suppose you would think it is ok for a mother to murder her child after it has left the womb since it was her choice in the first place. Well, I am an old white guy who entered my wife’s womb with my penis and deposited my sperm and then I decided that I didn’t want her to have the result of that act, mine and her child. Thankfully she did not allow the abortionist to kill our baby. So bring that rather large shoe on or open your eyes and realize that murder is always wrong and the man has the right to be involved in any decision the woman makes after she allowed him to impregnate her in the first place.

My best friend in high school has basically thrown her life away. I am going to call her x just incase she ever reads this (doubtful but I am uncomfortable with even first names in this scenario)….

She had her first child at 15. How this child came to be is her boyfriend at the time was a 20 something year old guy with his own apartment in the neighboring town in which we used to hang out in. On the weekends in which her mom had visitation of her, x’s mom would pick her up and drop her off at the bf’s apartment. When x found out she was pregnant, she at first tried to pin it on 3 different guys. She had the child… I will call him kid 1. Her dad found out what was going on behind his back with that bf’s apartment. He made sure that the bf got it for estatuatory rape.

A couple years later she was dating this one guy… I will call him y. Great guy y was… best shes ever dated. Y would watch kid 1 so that x and I could go carouse the town… and Y’s brother also would watch kid 1 in the same circumstances… Anyways she started dating Z behind Y’s back. She even went as low as going out with Z when Y was watching Kid 1. She got pregnant, broke up with Y. She denied that she was pregnant for the longest time calling kid 2 an ulcer even though looking at the shape of her stomach you could easily tell it wasn’t an ulcer. She married Z a couple months later, had kid 2 and divorced Z about 2 years later.

She had custody of both kids and dated Army man. X claims army man was the scum of the earth but probably in reality he was alright. She became pregnant. Army man went off to I think serve. She told the ulcer story yet again until she couldn’t anymore. She wanted to get an abortion. There was no doctor who would perform the procedure given how late she was in term in the area. Then she talked about giving the baby up for adoption. Army man came back, found out X was pregnant and put a stop to the adoption. Army man currently has kid 3 and shortly after that Z took custody of kid 2.

She then met another dude. I will call him the silent one. Aparently she claims to have known The silent one from the past but either way… He lived in TX and comes here on business a lot. She eventually moved down to TX with him. She married the guy and had one possibly 2 more kids. I remember talking to her on the phone and there would be a baby in the background. X would claim that she was babysitting. She wasn’t even honest with her own father about kid 4 until she had to bring kid 4 back with her one of the times she came back. We don’t know for sure if kid 5 even exists, but we have sneaking suspicions that kid 5 does exist. She got divorced yet again, only this time the silent one took the kid(s) and did not permit X to even see them or know where they are at.

She met another guy down there…, I will call him Alchy. Alchy was supposedly Mr wonderful. By this time I had completely lost touch with her because of where we were in our lives and her inability to come clean with a phone bill. She got pregnant. Had her daughter.. got engaged and broke up with him due to the alcohol suposedly. Alchy never knew that kids 2-5 existed either. By this time Kid 1 was living with x’s father… as in grandpa! … and the rest of the kids were with their fathers and she had signed over her legal rights to these kids.

I think about all these kids and the situations that all of them are in. To think that their mother didnt want them or prioritized partying to even take care of them! I know with Kid 1….. The only constants in that kids life are me and his grandparents. Its sad! I love kid 1 to death too hes a great kid. These kids did not ask to be born into these situations. I think that sometimes it would have been better if X would have aborted or given up some of these kids up for adoption. Their lives have gotta be hard. I definitely feel bad for them.

Abortion has no business being a political game… a sound bite to make the evening news. It is a medical decision between a woman and her doctor. If you have a moral dilemma or a religious issue, then don’t have an abortion. It really is that simple. Trust me. I know. ~~
Again, you show why you are one of my heroes!

There have been more than a few here that whine on about contraception. Why can’t these women take responsibility for not getting pregnant by using birth control. Snark, whine and complain. Ugh.

Well, birth control fails. Even when used properly. I know first hand. I’ve had 2 pregnancies due to condom failure and one due to a failure with my diaphragm. Yes, they were all being used properly too. Stuff happens.

seriously can people (men) start taking care of their own lives instead of finding ways to always be in control over others. As a women, as a human being I am my own to make decisions over whatever that concerns my body, my mind, heart and what I think, say or do. Having an abortion made in my teenage, I can’t think of any other person than myself to be in charge of that decision.

AMEN!,AMEN!,AMEN!,AMEN!,AMEN!,AMEN!,AMEN!,
and oh I don’t know AMEN!, and I’m an “old white man!” and to add to my sins I have the (currently) dishonor to be a “native” Texan. cn’t help my place of birth or (financialy dictated) residence but I can sure THINK! a skill which seems to elude a large portion of my peer group. God I’ve missed you Helen and am so glad to have a post to read this morning.

I had to put my two cents worth in here as an American in which this bill definitely helps both right away and in the longterm, compared to the status quo.

I have MS… a pre-existing condition. I have heard all the arguments from the republican side against this bill. I have not heard one argument that wasn’t inherently selfish or stupid at that. What our children are going to be paying for this??? Well our children will also be reaping the rewards of this bill too.

Personally, the last time I browsed the bill on the whitehouse.gov site…. I liked enough of what I saw to be in favor of it. The abortion language is a little vague, but at the same time I would rather take in the bad as long as the good comes with it… as in insuring over 30 million americans… Making it so that people like me and millions of americans with preexisting conditions could get coverage…. etc…

I would rather see people get safe controlled abortions than resort to the coathanger abortions of the past. I think that it is a mothers choice and as long as the mother makes the choice in a responsible fashion with good reasoning… thats that. Tidy up the language a little and I think that federally funded abortions within limits are alright. Put the responsibility on the mother to make the informed, well thought out, artticulate decision. Don’t put the government inside of womens vaginas.

I think I can offer up an opinion from a different perspective. I am an “unwanted child”.
My mother was a teenager when she got pregnant for the first time. In those days there was no obortion option (atleast not a legal one) so she chose to marry the father at 17. Needless to say that was a disaster and ended quickly. She married the next man a year later and proceeded to have three children with him. I was the Last of those three children. By this time in their relationship they were unhappy, she had discovered alcohol and missed the life she could have had. They broke up and what followed was many years of severe abuse and neglect. I will not go into details. I will say that now, as an adult I can honestly say that if I had been given a choice to be born into this chaos or be oborted, I would most certainly have chosen obortion. NO child should be born unwanted. NO child should have to be abused and neglected. NO child should have to go hungry and cry themselves to sleep everynight because they are afraid. I am neither depressed, angry, an alcoholic, drug user or an abuser myself. I came to understand my mother and lover her despite her faults. I got an education, had a family of my own, raised my children as best I could, but because of my broken childhood I in turn had failed marriages. I hope, that my children will be able to succeed were I failed. But I loved them and gave them the best that I could.
I have always had respect for people and try to see both sides of the picture. But this world cannot sustain the continued growth of the human population. There are just not enough resources to continue this way. Education is the answer, but what do you do with the people of the world that do NOT teach their children, that believe in “God will take care of it”. No woman chooses obortion lightly, it is difficult at best and heartbreaking at worst, but it must remain an option.

Isn’t it always the old, white, men. It is all about control, fear and hate with these people. What business is it of theirs?? Are they going to raise all these children ? They hate the mothers on welfare and they hate the children born out of marriage and scream refusal to help. They “love the fetus and hate the child”………what is that about?? Maybe women should demand that the men cut off their “family jewels” …….getting pregnant takes two.

These same old white men and women as well as freaks like Michelle Bachmann and the idiot Palin , have reverted to vile language, racist behavior and out of control rhetoric. They are going to tear this country apart. But, that is their goal. When do WE stand up and say ENOUGH??

If anyone had dared or even thought about behaving towards Bush like these teabaggers and even some of our congresspeople are behaving, they would have been put away and would never see the light of day. The disrespect is unbelievable.

Sarah Palin made it ok to use this kind of rhetoric and the Republican party did not stop her. This is who the Republicans are. They are people who hate, who have no respect for anything and are willing to do anything to gain power. Until we do something about these people it will continue. I hope the FBI investigates every single person that they can who has attended the Teabag crap. I would like to see Limbaugh,Beck, Hannity and the rest of the people at FOX news , Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin and anyone else who is involved with the violent teabaggers under investigation.

You could not even wear a shirt with the number of dead from the Iraq war anywhere near George Bush. those people were arrested, yet we allow vile, disgusting people to spit and name call at our leaders.

There was already a federal law that prevented taxpayer’s money from being used to fund abortion. Both parties of Congress knew that going into the healthcare debate. They also knew that there was no provision in the Healthcare Bill or its alterations that changed that law. All Mr. Obama had to do was state that no changes were forthcoming in that law and no challenges were being made to that law by the bill…in other words, restate the facts. All the hoo-ha about abortion was just posturing for the elections.

It’s time to demand that GOP leaders, candidates and other would-be Obamacare repealers take a pledge. It should be simple. Something like: “Because I believe so strongly that Democratic health-care reform is a calamity for the country, I hereby vow that neither I nor anyone in my family will take advantage of the protections offered by this law.” […]
from Daily Kos

Although I am typically on the opposite side of the fence from you all…on this particular subject, I MOSTLY agree. I do think abortion is far too often chosen as the easiest option, but I do agree it is every woman’s personal decision….of course it is also every woman’s personal decision to use birth control which is so readily available that unwanted pregnancies, except in certain circumstances, should be avoidable therefore making abortion avoidable.

Ideally, in a consensual relationship that results in an unwanted pregnancy, the couple would discuss what to do. But ultimately, the choice HAS to rest with the woman who is physically affected and ultimately responsible. How many “deadbeat moms” do you hear about? That not to say that it never happens, but statistically, men are more likely to leave and NOT help raise or even financially support the child. Most importantly, regardless of anything else, it is the woman’s body. No one has the right to force her to do anything with it that she doesn’t want to do. Is it necessarily fair to the man who has contributed half of the genetic material? No, it’s not, but sometimes life isn’t fair and we as a society can only do so much to make it better. Forcing a woman to endure a pregnancy she doesn’t want is MORE unfair.

Frankly, the factor that reduces the number of abortions is the availability of education and contraceptives. Women who have access to healthcare are more likely to have the information and resources to prevent an unwanted pregnancy, or the affordable care to make carrying an unexpected pregnancy an option.

Doug,
You make sense.
I agree. Nobody LIKES abortion. Nobody WANTS an abortion. But we do live in a constitutional society where decisions are reached that affect all those who collectively breathe that constitution every minute of every day.
The passion surrounding this issue is, at its core, what it means to be human. We have strived to perfect this country based on the premise that we the people are in this together.
The obstructionism seen this weekend (not to mention the vitriol of the Republican cheerleaders of hate) was a striking example of those who choose to withdraw from the nature of a representational democracy. The manner in which we choose to run our country is determined by the majority with respect for the minority.

The Republican minority deserves civic-minded respect but it’s really hard to give it when we hear name-calling and shouting from the floor of the House.

Let’s all take a deep breath. And remember that the least of these (poor, hungry, worried, tired, down-trodden) citizens deserve exactly what the most of us have–an opportunity to care for a sick child, aged parent, or dying spouse.

I, for one, think all politicians should take an oath to fully uphold the constitution and promise to work for the common good for all people and have the oath-taking ceremony filmed and then distributed to each constituent in their district.

I hate abortion. I welcome more support and funding to help teach students to make the right choices in this difficult world. As a teacher, I see the “spark” of learning something new shine brightly in my students faces every day. Everyone should have that opportunity to learn, thrive, and grow in a safe environment.

What’s amazing is that all these “pro life” people are against health care reform. They’ll do everything in their power to keep any woman from having an abortion, but once you have the baby, you’re on your own! go figure.
And to Joel: I’m a man too, and it’s non of my God damn business what a 16 year old girl in Kansas decides to do with a seed of a baby that doesn’t even have a brain, a heart or a soul of his own. A child is not a child without his soul or his spirit, without a brain or a heart. The soul of a baby enters him or her at the moment of birth. Until then he shares the soul of his Mother. And would you rather have a child enter this world for a life of abuse poverty and misery? Shut the hell up, man! or as Helen would say shut your pie hole.

Senns, sometimes, protection fails. What then? I do agree with you that educating our young is key to this problem. But you might not know that a certain segment of our society is against teaching sex education in schools. Usually, most members of that same group oppose abortions.

As a gay male with a fat white ass I thought I would add my little contribution. No one likes abortion, lets face it ! its unpleasent for the woman, the foetus and the medical staff. The simple fact is my distate for abortion can NEVER over-ride a women’s absolute right to dispose of her body in any way she feels fit. Does abortion make me feel uncomfortable ? damn right it does.. Would I take a female friend to an abortion clinic and hold her hand ? damn right I would ! Can you imagine anyone telling a man not to masturbate because of the billions of potential lives being lost ?

Just to make note on the ‘abortion issue’. There is something called the Hyde Amendment. What this does is prevent ANY federal money going to pay for abortion, with exception to rape, saving the life of the mother, or serious un-viability of the fetus.

It does not matter what ever might be passed, that law stands in effect over all.

The HCR (law) does not offer any federal money to pay for abortions. Any woman that wants that coverage will either have to buy a separate insurance policy or pay for it out of her own pocket. That IS what that part of the health care reform is all about.

What the Stupak amendment was, is that any insurance company that sells any policy that covers abortion cannot take part in the HCR. It does not matter that the policies would be separate and federal funds would never be within a mile of any abortion policy.

So the whiny little whack nuts should sit down and shush up. Y’all haven’t got a clue and wouldn’t know reality if it bit yer behind.

One of those rare times I respectfully disagree. Even though I am female, I believe that by agreeing to participate in a sexual relationship with a man, you are inviting him into that decision. I’m not saying abortion should be illegal. But I don’t believe the decision should be quite so cut and dry as to say that 50% who contributed to the situation are not germane to the decision to be made.

Sunshine – he’ll probably get back in because there is no viable Dem running. There is however a teabagger named JD Hayworth running against McCain in the primary who is scarier by far than McCain. So I guess we are stuck with the old fart. Sorry, that was an insult to good old farts everywhere.

Imagine that. John McCain wanted to be president.. Now he is so mad and bitter, he says he will not vote for anything at all that the Democrats present until the elections. Gosh, that should make his constituents really happy and proud. Why would they vote him back in? So happy he didn’t win the presidency. We need a steady and responsible person at the helm such as President Obama, not a spoiled brat baby.

Just so you all know, Stupak is from a district in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and a great many of us “below the bridge” cringe when he’s linked to our state. Personally, I have emailed him to let him know not to run for state office, because he couldn’t win. He’s an embarrassment.

Thank you, Helen, for stating what many of us feel so clearly and concisely.

You go girl!
I don’t know who Bart whomever is, but he sounds like a jerk.
I agree that it is a decision between a woman and her doctor.
Abortion should not be a political issue.
My favorite politician once said, “The government has no place in the bedrooms of the nation.” I think that applies equally to choices that a person makes about her/his body.
Having said that, I am not sure that state/federally funded medical programs should pay for a personal choice issue.
I think that in *some* cases, the cost should be covered, but that abortion should NOT be used as a method of birth control.
Parents and teachers have a responsibility, in my opinion, to teach kids about the facts of life and how to protect themselves from things like unwanted pregnancies and STDs. If a woman knows how to prevent an unwanted pregnancy, but chooses to forgo protection, then it should be up to her to pay for an abortion.
Just my opinion though.

Anyway, thank you, Helen, for weighing in. I’m truly sick of the douchebaggery of the right who constantly cry for “smaller government” while trying to legislate people’s personal choices about whom they may marry and who gets to control a woman’s health choices.

The grandstanding and pandering about abortion as it relates to the Health Insurance Bill by legislators on both sides is especially disingenuous since, guess what? ABORTION IS LEGAL!!! It’s a choice. Never easily made and nobody else’s business but the person making it. Against abortion? Don’t have one.

Steve H…
Personally I don’t care if a woman has 12 abortions a year…..just don’t ask me to pay for it…..I payed for my mistakes……its called being responsible……..unlike now with “It’s not my fault” ……

I just wish someone would send a link about what exactly(nonlegalistic mumbo jumbo) is in the bill……..all the brain power in TV and radio and we get commentary on 30 sec soundbites…..where is the reporting on exactly what the bill does…..and doesn’t do……where are the health care savings…..what is going to make tests cheaper… what is going to make MRI’s cheaper……paying someone else’s insurance makes it cheaper for them but not me…..I”d rather see 0 unemployment with everyone getting health insurance with their job than this abortion….and YES I’m whining….

I understand then that the difference is that men should stay away from moralizing on the issue of abortion because they can’t get pregnant.

Thanks for your reply, jsri. I wasn’t referring to reproductive rights as an agenda (although I’m not sure why that’s pathetic or what exactly it reveals about me, but I’ll take your word for it). I was referring to the passage of the HCR bill as an agenda, and the moralizing attached to the rhetoric from the left. (I hardly think anyone would be offended at having Health Care Reform characterized as their agenda – but if I’ve stepped in it again, so be it. Sorry!)

Anyway, I’m speaking about the moralizing from the left about people who were against this particular bill or had specific issues with the current version being voted on (like Bart Stupak). It seems to me that the right sees HCR as an economics issue, and the left sees it as a moral issue. Those are generalizations, I realize. But Stupak’s conditions seemed reasonable to me. And the left seems so mad at him over his stance.

Just trying to make sense of all the moral outrage. Over abortion, HCR, Sarah Palin, Christians, Stupak, Republicans, and on and on. I understand some of it that comes from the right, and I’d like to understand some of it that comes from the left.

Thank you for your posts. I have missed them. I have had more than one abortion and I do want people to know that it is not a minor/mindless decision. When I was young I would say that I would never do it…Until you’re in the situation you can’t know what you would do. I regret today that I didn’t have the courage then to be a single parent, but I don’t beat myself up about it, because when you make a decision it’s based on what you feel you can do at the time. I am appalled at religious extremists who want to make decisions for others… Thanks again.

@uaw tradesman: quit whining. “lets just put an IRS agent in every emergency room” is right up there with putting a policeman in every OB/GYN’s office — though, from the tone of your note, I’d guess you’d advocate that too.

Republicans are refusing to do business after 2pm as their latest method of obstruction, and screwing up all sort of things. I hope that we only pay them for a half day’s work while this goes on.

I see they want an amendment to the healthcare bill that prohibits viagra for sex offenders. This puts the government squarely between patients and doctors. I thought they were against that? Do you know that people think the bill actually explicitly says sex offenders can get these medications?

If this health care bill is so good why are they making people wait until 2014 or longer….call your congressperson and demand that everything be enacted today…..demand that those 45 million uninsured have their taxes checked and order them to either get insurance or pay the fine….got to give those 12.000new IRS employees something to do….lets just put an IRS agent in every emergency room…..

I still haven’t seen where the actual cost of health care has been lowered…..health care not insurance……

The subject list for moraliziing politicians is almost infinite, be they males or females. But no moralizing male politician should have the right to say anything at all about abortion. Unless and until males can carry a child to term they have nothing to offer in the discussion.

It is revealing that you reduce the subject of reproductive rights to the category of an “agenda” item. Pathetic.

So glad you wrote again, even if I disagree with you. Please don’t take so long to write. Would like to hear what you and Margaret have to say about our new health care law, Sara’s 1 million-dollar an episode tv show, Republican obstructionism, the NFL’s new overtime rules…just write PLEASE!

And please, my friends, don’t ever let these clueless idiots ignore/forget/deny that abortion is, for some women, a lifesaving procedure. It needs to be legal. A sufficient number of doctors need to be properly trained and available to perform it.